


Broken is the Golden Bowl

by Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola



Category: The Monstrumologist Series - Rick Yancey
Genre: Angst, Long term romance, M/M, Romance, almost canon compliant, romantic smut, tw: implications of assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:26:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola/pseuds/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Winter of 1872 the young poet Pellinore Warthrop meets the young and beautiful John Kearns. Neither lonesome Pellinore nor independent John anticipated how quickly they would come to need each other. But by the Spring of 1888 when Warthrop’s letter brings Kearns to New Jerusalem to hunt the Anthropophagi, something has gone horribly wrong.  </p><p>Chapter 7: Fall 1874</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spring 1888

**Author's Note:**

> This story will primarily be told in the rather short gaps of time when Will Henry is not around for this to have made it to the folios. Admittedly, some small gaps of time do not strictly appear in the canon, but there is no reason they couldn't have.

#  **Spring 1888**

###  **Before the Hunt**

“You can imagine my surprise when I received your letter, Pellinore.” 

Pellinore Warthrop paused. He had been making his way to his bedroom. He would need to be fully rested for the anthropophagi hunt on the following eve. But Jack’s voice, emanating from his open door, called him back. 

With some reservations, he stepped into the light of Kearns’ borrowed room. Kearns himself was not looking at him. He was standing near the window, looking out, though not much could be seen beyond his own reflection in the dark glass. 

Pellinore shifted his weight uncomfortably and clasped his hands behind his back. “I do not see why, Jack. As I said, I required your services.” 

Kearns looked over his shoulder and raised a slim brow, “You must have been quite desperate to ask me to come.” 

“Stanley is in Buganda...he is the real expert.” 

“Ah,” Jack said with mocking understanding, “So I was the only option you had left.” He turned back to the window, his voice dropping the mocking tone and becoming quite dull he said, “I ought to have surmised.” 

Bitterly Pellinore retorted, “Yes. You ought to have.” 

Jack turned leisurely and smirked, “I would not be so quick to insult, my dear Pellinore, the monsters are far from dead, I could still take my leave.” 

Pellinore’s lip curled, “That would not be out of character for you, Kearns, to leave just when you are most needed.” 

A flicker passed through his gray eyes but then Jack shrugged with seeming nonchalance. He lifted his valise and strode toward the door, slowing as he passed Pellinore to hiss into his ear, “As you wish. I shall send for my things. Happy hunting.” 

Pellinore’s hand shot out to grip Kearns’ arm at the elbow. Minutely, he turned his head and stammered, “Jack, stay.”

“Whyever would you want that?” 

“...I need you, John.” 

Kearns eyes closed for a prolonged moment, then he turn his head to meet Pellinore’s, their faces inches apart. In a silken whisper he said, “Stay until the monsters are taken care of, that is what you mean, of course. You need my _expertise_.” 

“...Of course,” Pellinore said, leaning back, “Whatever else would I mean?” 

Jack grinned, baring those straight, white teeth, “Whatever else indeed?” 

Pellinore released Kearns' arm and he returned his valise to his bed. 

“Then you will stay?” Pellinore asked. 

In a stiff voice Kearns said, “Well, I did come all this way.”

Pellinore took a hesitating step toward him, “...Thank you, John.”

“Jack, I’ve told you, I prefer Jack”

“Jack...thank you.” 

Kearns turned and his eyes roved over Pellinore, he parted his lips and a shadow of a smirk lifted their edges, “You can do better than that,” he paused and then lingered over the syllables, “Pellinore.” 

Pellinore averted his eyes, “I do not know what you mean, Kearns.” 

A lift of his eyebrows, “Don’t you? Is your memory so poor?” His voice had become teasing again, as it had been in the library with Morgan.

Pellinore was resolutely not looking at him, his voice had become dull and stiff, “I haven’t the faintest inkling as to your meaning, _as I said_.”

Jack sidled closer, until his breath could nigh be felt upon Pellinore’s cheek, the singular inch he possessed in height over Pellinore seeming to allow him to loom over the doctor. “Because,” Kearns began, his voice so low Pellinore had to remain absolutely silent to hear it, “I seem to remember your being far more,” he lifted his hand as slow as one charming a tiger and traced the pad of his thumb over Warthrop’s lower lip, “gracious.” 

Pellinore, who had gasped at the contact drew back sharply, the color high on his cheeks, eyes wild, “I will have none of that, Kearns,” he snarled in a low voice, eyes darting to the open door. 

“Won’t you?” Jack asked, tilting his head, “That would be a first.” 

Pellinore’s head was bowed and his own fingers were tracing his bottom lip, “No, Jack. Not this time.” 

In a whisper free of all teasing Jack breathed, “Why not?” 

Pellinore’s head shot up and he rumbled, “You know very well why not, Kearns! Every time I allow you to return you find something new to strip me of!” Vehemently he turned to the door. 

Kearns held him back, low voice impassioned, “I did not mean for it to end as it did, Pellinore!” 

“You never do, Jack,” Pellinore said, looking toward the hallway.

Kearns laughed harshly and without humor, “Then I am to be blamed for all of it?” 

“Because all of it is your fault,” Pellinore retorted, spinning to face Kearns again, sneering. 

“People die, Pellinore.” 

“With incredible frequency whenever you come around, Jack.” 

Jack tipped back his chin ever so slightly that he might look down his nose at Pellinore, “There is only one death I would have mourned, and he did not manage to make it all the way to the grave.” 

Pellinore leaned forward and hissed, “No thanks to you.” 

Jack recoiled as though struck, “I could not have-”

“Couldn’t you? You could not even visit? Even after?” Old hurt crept into Pellinore’s voice. 

Jack swallowed audibly, “Pellinore.” 

Pellinore looked up at him, “Jack?” 

Jack stepped closer to him again and lifted his hand to his face. Almost unconsciously Pellinore pressed his cheek against Jack’s palm. His eyes closed. Jack shifted closer still and ran his thumb across Pellinore’s lips. “Are you quite certain, Pellinore?” Jack whispered, “Do you have it in you to turn me aside?”

“Yes,” Pellinore murmured, his eyes lidded and looking away. 

“Then turn me aside.” 

When no reply was forthcoming Jack tilted down his head in tiny increments. He stopped when his cherubic lips hung so near Pellinore’s that Pellinore could nearly feel them. His breath warm on Pellinore’s flesh he whispered, “May I?” 

Pellinore’s eyes lifted to meet Jack’s and many breaths passed between them before Pellinore answered, “Damn you...yes.” 

Jack made a sound of abject relief and pressed his lips to Pellinore’s. Pellinore’s hands leapt to Jack’s collar and wrenched him closer. Jack, no longer tender, slid his hands down Pellinore’s slender frame, biting his bottom lip hard enough to make Pellinore gasp. He slid his tongue against Pellinore’s, growling. 

Pellinore pulled Jack’s head backward by the hair and dragged his teeth and lips over his throat, he found the spot right at the crux of Jack’s neck and shoulder, a spot he had found many times, and bit. 

Jack called out. 

Pellinore drew back sharply and hissed, “Kearns, quiet!” Again he looked over his shoulder at the open door. 

Jack ran his tongue over his lips, that already looked swollen and particularly pink and said, “Shut the door, Pellinore.”

Pellinore went to the door but paused a moment before it was closed, he looked up at Kearns, “I ought not, Jack. I...We ought to rest.” 

Jack fixed him with a most leonine smile and raised a brow, “Now, my darling Pellinore, tomorrow is to be quite the dangerous day, we may not live through it.” 

Pellinore almost looked amused, “I would have thought, Jack, that you would be above such pedestrian arguments as ‘this could be the last night of our lives.’”

Jack looked at Pellinore through hooded eyes, “As you well know, concerning you, Pellinore, I am above _nothing_.” 

Pellinore sighed and shut the door then turned back to face Kearns. He took a hesitant step toward him and, unable to wait, Kearns crossed the room. He pressed his face into Pellinore’s neck, nuzzling and pressing kisses along the skin. 

Pellinore made soft gasps as Kearns hands strayed under his shirt. Gently he drew his fingernails down Pellinore’s stomach. Pellinore jerked and his hands gripped Jack’s hips. He pressed himself against Kearns and he could be felt through the fabric of his trousers.

“You have-” he gasped, “-not forgotten too much, I see.” 

Jack teased the shell of Pellinore’s ear with his teeth and whispered, “As though this were something I would ever forget.” 

Jack's hands slid down the front of Pellinore's trousers. Indiscriminately he palmed Pellinore through his pants, his lips and teeth teasing Pellinore's throat.

Pellinore pulled Jack against him by the hips and lifted him, one arm beneath him, and one behind his back. Compliantly Jack wrapped his legs about his slight waist and tilted Pellinore’s head back that he might kiss him. 

Pellinore carried him across the room, dropping him unto the bed and moving Jack’s valise out of the way. He crawled over him, working at the buttons on Jack’s shirt. Happy to help, Jack divested himself of his shirt and then rolled his hips up lasciviously to rid himself of his trousers also. Entirely bared he lifted his arms and put them behind his head, wantonly displaying what he knew Pellinore to find quite irresistible. 

“Jack,” Pellinore breathed over him. 

Jack wriggled underneath him as Pellinore, sitting atop his hips, explored the well crafted muscles of Jack’s torso with his long fingers. 

Softly Pellinore said, “There are things I have remembered also, John.” 

Under hooded eyes Jack said, “I do not believe it, Pellinore, you shall have to prove yourself.” 

Pellinore whispered, "That is not what I meant." 

Kearns sat up, pulling himself to Pellinore, kissing him desperately. Pellinore held him to himself one hand in his hair and one behind his back. He held him firmly. It was less a kiss than an embrace, fierce and needy.

"Pellinore," Kearns whined. 

"John," He said. He nuzzled the side of John's face, "John, I missed you." 

John buried his head into Pellinore's neck, smelling his hair and skin, his voice shook, "I always miss you. I always have." 

Pellinore drew back enough to look at him and brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes, tucking the loose strands back behind his ears. He reached behind John's head and untied the ribbon that tied back his hair and let it fall around his bare shoulders. He drew his fingers through the silken strands and Kearns nearly purred. 

Softly, his lips against John's ear, his hummed,  
_"Haloed in a golden light,_  
_His lips spilled forth his song,"_  


John's head shot up and his eyes blazed, "Please, Pellinore."

Defeated Pellinore said, "Please, what? What do you want, John?" 

"More. I know that you remember."

"...I do remember." He looked into John's pleading face, "No."

John's wail was keening.

“I said, _quiet_ , Kearns,” Pellinore's face screwed up and he shoved Kearns back down onto the mattress. He followed Kearns down, kissing him harshly, grinding his hips down, his fingers finding the tender spots on Kearn's torso and alternating between tender caresses and tweaks that were nearly rough.

Kearns writhed under him. His trousers becoming quite constraining Pellinore quickly abandoned his clothing atop Kearns’. No sooner was he unclothed but Kearns hands leapt to his skin, caressing every inch of it. He lifted his shoulders to kiss Pellinore’s chest and throat, scraping his teeth against his skin. Both of them had lost the moment of gentleness and proceeded with intensity that bordered on harshness. When Kearns hands strayed lower, nails biting on the inside of Pellinore’s thigh he gasped and pushed Jack back down onto the bed by the shoulder. 

“That oil -” he breathed hard, “Jack, do you still carry it with you?” 

“In my bag, under the bed, let me get it.” 

Jack reached under the bed and fumbled for a moment in the bag before retrieving a small bottle. He dangled it in front of Pellinore, “How would you prefer we proceed?” he asked teasingly. 

“Turn around.” 

Kearns raised and eyebrow, “A gentleman might say, ‘please.’” 

Pellinore lurched forward, seizing Jack by the jaw and kissing him with ferocious purpose, then he growled, “Turn around.” 

Without another work Jack turned onto his belly and drew himself up until he was on all fours. He looked coyly over his shoulder at Pellinore, “Is this what you had in mind?” 

Pellinore braced himself over Kearns, pulling his head back by the hair, exposing his throat, “Yes.” 

For all his bravado, Pellinore was careful in his preparations, slicking his fingers gratuitously and teasing Jack apart. Manhandle him perhaps, but Pellinore would not really hurt him.

“Get a bloody move on, will you?” 

Pellinore complied, groaning as he coated himself in the heady scented oil and bearing down on Kearns. It was too much. John beneath him as he moved, his golden features losing their rigid control in favor of abject bliss, those lips repeating Pellinore's name. In too brief a time, Pellinore careened over the edge. His hips jerked and he threw back his head, hoarsely hissing, "John!" 

Jack followed soon after, his own keening moans kept quiet by Pellinore’s hand.

Minutes later and still catching his breath Pellinore lay stretched out on top of the covers, legs still tangled with Kearns’. 

Recovering before him, Kearns rolled over and lifted himself onto his elbow, his free hand brushing hair out of Pellinore’s face. He grinned, his eyes softer than Pellinore had seen them in years. He pressed a series of kisses across Pellinore’s face. 

“Are you going to throw me out as quickly as you did last time, Pellinore?” He said tenderly.

Pellinore allowed himself a small, uncharacteristic smirk, “If you behave yourself for once, John, perhaps I shall let you stay.” 

Jack waggled his eyebrows, “It’s Jack, and you know I was never so good at that! Turn over.” 

“I am no longer a youth, Jack, give me a moment to rest would you?” 

Jack scoffed, “That is not what I’m after, you scoundrel, now turn over, this is for your benefit.” 

Compliantly, Pellinore turned over to his stomach, looking curiously up at Jack over his shoulder. Jack slid astride him, knees tucked against his sides. 

Jack leaned over to the bedstand and snagged the bottle of oil they had recently made use of and spilled some on Pellinore’s bare back. Pellinore hissed at the cold. 

“Hush,” Jack said and pressed his fingers into Pellinore’s back, massaging the knotted muscles. 

Pellinore dropped his head into his arms and groaned, “My god, Jack.” 

Jack worked his way down his shoulders and back, thumbs pressing out the tense knots. All the while Pellinore groaned and bleatted into his arms. 

When he was finished Jack curled up next to the now pliable Pellinore and pulled him flush to him, nuzzling into his dark hair. “Stay here tonight.” 

Pellinore turned his head and kissed him languidly, “Would that I could, John. I need to wake in my own room. Imagine if someone came calling.”

Jack only attached himself more securely to Pellinore, who did not resist curling up against him.

Into Pellinore’s hair Jack murmured, “...I want to stay, Pellinore.” 

Pellinore pressed his head against Jack’s chest, “Then stay.” 

Jack sat up enough to look at Pellinore, “Do you really mean -” 

A movement from the other side of the room caused both of them to twist around to look.

Pellinore spoke in a dangerously low tone, “It came from your box, Jack.” 

Jack tongue passed over his teeth, “So it did.” 

Pellinore drew away, standing, “What is in that box, John?” 

Jack sat up, leaning back against the headboard, “You asked me here to hunt anthropophagi, Pellinore, don’t you already know know what’s in the box?” 

Pellinore stiffened and he swept his trousers off the floor, wrenching them on. He spat at Jack, “I ought to tell the constable, Kearns.” 

Jack sighed and reaffixed his sly smile, his eyes losing all traces of softness, “By all means, Pellinore, but what do you propose we use instead? The boy, perhaps?” 

Still only half dressed Pellinore snarled at Jack, “I am surprised you are not chomping at the bit to send Will Henry to the wolves as you did his father!” 

Jack rose fluidly, smiling in the face of Pellinore’s fury, “As far as I recall there was another who was equally complicit in the horrific death of James Henry,” he tapped his finger to his cheek as though thinking, “Now, whoever could that have been?” 

Pellinore struck him, the force of it turning Kearns’ head to the side. 

Jack laughed softly, a red mark upon his cheek, “So tell good Bobby Morgan and do write me about the jolly good time you had hunting the fiends without my ‘inestimable services.’” 

Pellinore’s chest was heaving, he pulled his shirt on and scowled at the box and cursed, “When we have finished with the anthropophagi you will take your leave, John.” 

Jack grinned, “As you wish, my darling Pellinore. And it’s Jack.” 

Pellinore left, slamming the door behind him. 

### After the Hunt

Warthrop had first tended to Will Henry’s wounds, then sent him to his bed in his loft. When Will had been seen to he bathed himself, scouring his body of the mud and blood of the hunt. The heat of the bath nearly put him to sleep, he hadn't realized how cold he'd been, half dressed and damp crawling about under the graveyard. When at long last, the bathwater had gone cold, he went to his bedroom, intending to sleep more hours than he usually did in four nights combined. But, exhausted as he was, sleep did not come peacefully. 

When it did it was in short and terrible bursts that he woke from after barely closing his eyes, coming awake certain that a beast was upon him. On the third of such instances, a monster was. 

“Kearns,” he hissed, “What the devil are you doing in here?” he pulled his coverlet up to hide his bare chest. 

Kearns, also clad in sleepwear, although his was silken and not as ratty as Pellinore’s was distracted from his original purpose to raise his eyebrows, “Modesty, Pellinore? That seems hardly necessary where I am concerned.” 

“I am sleeping, Kearns, leave me be.” 

“Are you? Because from what I could hear you were merely tossing about and gasping. Is everything quite alright?” 

“ _No_ it is not, Kearns. My assistant, _as you may recall_ , was nearly devoured. Malachi Stinnett was slain and it is a surprise, to be frank, that the two of us emerged as whole as we did.” 

Uninvited Kearns sat at the edge of his bed, “I do wish the Stinnett boy had not been killed, you know, but he did volunteer.” 

Accusing, Pellinore’s voice rose from the dark, “You pushed Will Henry into a den of the beasts, Jack.” 

“So I did.” 

“Have you nothing to say on the matter?” 

In the moonlight shining through the window, Pellinore could see the dimmest outline of Jack shrugging, “Only that there was no other recourse. You had already put him in danger, I had no idea you would be so aggravated over the matter, particularly considering that he was alright. I never left him, not for an instant.”

“I did not think his crawling through that hole would be dangerous.” 

Jack chuckled, “Then whyever did you lie to Bobby Morgan about it?” 

“Get out of my bedroom, Jack.” 

“Do you truly want me to leave?” 

“Jack, do you really think I am up for your advances?” 

“You wound me, Pellinore,” he said and sounded as though Pellinore really may have, “That wasn’t what I was offering.” 

In a tone that nearly made his next words sound like an apology Pellinore said, “Well...I know quite well how you are about hunts.” 

Jack laughed softly, “They do get my blood up, yes, but you are clearly in no condition for anything so engaged.” 

“Then what are you offering?” 

Cautiously, Jack lay down beside him, although over the covers rather than beneath them and put his arms around Pellinore.

Pellinore lay his head against Kearns’ chest, and Kearns began softly pulling his fingers through Pellinore's freshly bathed hair.

Softly, but not without anger Pellinore murmured, “I am still angry about what you did to Will Henry.” 

“You have made that point abundantly clear, sleep now, Pellinore.” 

Pellinore allowed himself to be nuzzled for a few minutes longer before he said, “I meant it, Kearns, I am not interested in any sort of amorous advance tonight.” 

“I meant it as well, Pellinore, I am content with this.” 

Pellinore scoffed, “With me, sweating onto your pajamas?” 

“Yes,” Kearns said, and Pellinore dearly wished the light was burning that he might see the expression to accompany such a softened voice, “Yes, Pellinore, I am content with you.” 

“...Get under the blankets at least, you will catch your death of cold.” 

Happily, Kearns crawled under the blankets and was free to curl Pellinore against him entirely.

He was very warm and his arms about Pellinore were very comforting. Resist though he might want to, it was not long before Pellinore was too contented to consider throwing Kearns out. Just before he slipped into unconsciousness he said, “Did you mean it, Jack, when you said you wanted to stay here?” 

“Yes,” Kearns said very seriously, “I meant it. I should...I should like to continue, Pellinore, where we left off before...before everything else transpired.” 

Pellinore dug himself against Kearns, “Jack, I want you to stay.”

Jack's arms tightened around him and he pressed his lips into Pellinore's hair, "Please, Pellinore, _more_."

Pellinore tilted back his head and looked at John in the dark, " _Haloed in a golden light,_  
_His lips spilled forth his song,_  
_and though he thought he looked at me,_  
_my soul he looked up._  


When his voice trailed away Jack whispered, "I never stopped, Pellinore."

"I know John. I know."

###  **Upon the Return from Dedum**

Upon returning to Harrington Lane Kearns went immediately upstairs after his business with Dr. Jeremiah Starr and Jonathan Peterson, “I rather think it has been a splendid three days, Pellinore,” Kearns said, looking over his shoulder to Pellinore who had followed him up, “I don't suppose you will take back your insistence that I not overstay my welcome.” 

Pellinore, fury set in every bone of his body, very nearly shook with it, “I would _prefer_ you remained and allowed yourself to be handed over the the police.” 

“But you know that I won’t.” 

“You murdered them, John.” 

“How often must I tell you I prefer Jack?” 

“Starr and Peterson, I- you understand you have left me with no choice.” 

Jack had the decency to peer over Pellinore’s shoulder to make sure there were no small ears listening at the door, then he leaned close, “ _You_ understand that those murders were for no one’s benefit but your own.” 

“My own? It is not because of me that those men are dead!” 

“No, not because of you, but _for_ you,” Jack looked at him through his long eyelashes, cherubic as ever. 

Pellinore set his jaw, “John-”

“Jack.” 

“ _Kearns_ , you cannot expect me to take a double homicide as a compliment.” 

“Of course not, that would be ridiculous, I meant it as a gift.” 

“A gift?” Warthrop asked incredulously. 

“Yes, my dear Pellinore, do you think I am so ungracious that after three nights of your esteemed company I would leave without giving something in return?” He lifted his brow and allowed his gaze to linger on Pellinore’s lips. 

“I- I will turn you over to the police,” he said resolutely. 

“Do as you must, but do think of me fondly while you are allowed to continue with your life’s work.” 

Pellinore glowered, “I shall not think of you at all.” 

Kearns grinned, “What is it that you are always telling that assistant apprentice of yours about lying?” 

He winked at Pellinore and plucked a scrap of paper off the nightstand, "Wouldn't want to forget this," he said, tucking it into his breast pocket.

"What is that?" Pellinore hissed.

"I don't suppose you would be willing to sign it? After all, I had to write this copy down myself," Jack said with the barest hint of a smile.

"Give that to me," Pellinore demanded, "You do not get to have that." 

"No, Pellinore, I lost my first one, do you think I would ever let this one out of my sight?" Jack hefted his bags and strode toward the door of his borrowed bedroom, at the door he turned back. Toying lilt gone from his voice he said, “Goodbye, Pellinore, until we are reacquainted.” 

Pellinore glared at him, mouth twisted into a terrible sneer, “We will not be.” 

Jack laughed with real mirth, “Oh, Pellinore, you wound me. Someday you shall miss me so dreadfully you chase me across the continents.”

“Goodbye, Jack.”


	2. Winter 1872

#  **Winter 1872**

### October 1872, Cambridge

Pellinore Warthrop sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. He was on what he thought must be his sixth cup of tea. He had been in this cafe for more than four hours and he was still no closer to writing anything he could stand to reread. 

He finished his tea and leaned back in his chair, stretching out the kinks in his back. He shoved his papers and inkpen back into his bag, too frustrated to look at them. He needed something to write _about_. Something new. 

He looked about the cafe, hoping to distract himself from his own shortcomings. 

The cafe was not full by any means, but quite busy for four o’clock in the afternoon. 

A gaggle of women sat in a sunlit booth, filling the air with giggles and their high fluting voices. Another student, such as Pellinore, not far from him. He had met the student before but could not recall his name, Clifford perhaps. A man and a woman were closeted near to Pellinore, their chattering and love sighs had been grating at him for more than thirty minutes. And there was a boy. 

It was the boy who caught his eye. Young man, maybe, it was difficult to tell. The boy flicked back his tousled hair, a dappled blonde. It was rather short, just long enough to fall over his forehead. His face was soft and cherubic. Handsome was not the word Pellinore would have chosen to use, for the boy was so slender he nearly girlishly so, pretty was closer. But it was his seating arrangement that had caught Pellinore’s attention. He sat _atop_ the bar at the far end, his back reclined against the wall. One of his legs was drawn up to his chest, the other swinging idly over the side of the bar. 

The cafe owner had clearly given him license to do it for he had not been told to get down although the owner was quite nearby. Most curious of all, and the reason Pellinore’s gaze continued to linger, was the kitchen knife he was holding in his delicate fingers, tapping the blade softly against his pouting lips. The weapon seemed out of place against a countenance such as his. 

“Hey, boy, there,” the owner, a Mr. Placardy, said gruffly to the boy, his broad finger lifting to point into a dark corner of the cafe. 

“Yes, I see it,” the boy drawled. He sounded momentously bored.

His hand flickered so fast Pellinore nearly missed it. The knife spun from his fingers and thudded, with a squelch, into the corner where the owner had pointed. Pellinore looked but could not see through the gloom. 

Mr. Placardy nodded stiffly toward the knife and the boy scowled. He lifted one of his blonde brows and said, “Are you hiring me for retrieval also? Our deal was for elimination.” 

“If you want your devil damned coin, you’ll throw the thing on the street.” 

The boy slid unhappily from his perch and lifted, still speared on his kitchen knife, a slain rat. He sauntered out of the establishment, and came back with the kitchen knife but without the dead rat. On his way back in he stopped before Pellinore and looked him over. 

“Is there something you require?” the boy asked, wrinkling his nose. 

Pellinore, who realized he had been quite openly gawking at the boy and, in his concentration, probably glaring, stammered, “Not at all...you are just more interesting than my work.” 

He raised his eyebrow again and narrowed his eyes, “I’ll bet.” He allowed no other comment, but turned his back on Pellinore and leapt agilely back to his perch atop the bar. Without a word he held out his hand and Mr. Placardy flipped him a coin. 

The boy became by no means a fixture, he seemed not to be on any sort of schedule but come and go quite as he pleased, appearing sometimes at the first spot Pellinore had seen him, perched on Mr. Placardy’s bar. But sometimes also he scoured the bakery next door free of scavengers, or the butcher's shop up the street. As though he were some sort of diminutive hunter of pestilential rodents. 

If there were other things which occupied his time, and there must've been for how little of it he spent on this street, Pellinore didn't know what they were. Of course he did not spend all his time looking for the little rat hunter. He had lectures to attend at Cambridge University, school work to complete, and his poetry to write. Even if he had not created something satisfactory in weeks. 

He did not even acknowledge that the rat hunter had become a part of the street he frequented on his time off until he was called to it out of practicality. 

He was on his way down the stairs from his small flat when he came to a halt, looking down at the anteroom where his landlady, the half deaf Mrs. Trumple was screeching at a boy. A pretty blonde boy, who smiled at her sunily. 

“Madame,” he said smoothly, no hint of the sneers Warthrop had seen on him before, “I would be simply honored to help you,” he bent and kissed the tips of her wrinkled fingers with a wink, making her blush. 

She swatted him, “Oh you, don’t go making me promises before you’ve seen the rats we’ve got.” 

Pellinore was aware of the problem, they scratched in the walls at night and kept him awake. 

A small mote of concern crossed the boy’s features, “Do you have very many?” 

“Oh, dear boy, I am afraid that we do, what is it you charge, now?” 

He looked almost embarrassed and answered, “A shilling a rat usually, at least, that is what the men up the street give me.” 

She blanched, it was not a hovel, but Pellinore felt certain that neither could she afford that absurd wage, nor that the boy was ever paid so highly. 

But Pellinore didn’t speak, he merely lingered at the top step, listening. 

The boy hurried on, “Of course, I could make special arrangements for _you_ , I could come when I was done up the street...if I had the time, I suppose. Only it’s a long way back to my humble home and I like to get back before dark.” He bit his soft lower lip and gave her a look of utmost sorrow that he could not be more helpful. “If I lived closer, perhaps I could.” 

“Now,” she said slowly, rubbing one withered hand over the other, “You know…I’ve...there is a room upstairs that I haven’t rented in years...bit small see... “ 

“Oh, I don’t think I could ma’am,” he said quickly, looking down then back up at her through his thick lashes, “I live a modest life, you know.” 

He very nearly couldn’t sell it, as far as Pellinore was concerned, who could quite clearly see his game. Too pretty by half for that argument. 

She took his hands in her own and, although she may have missed, it, Pellinore thought he saw the boy’s eyes darken momentarily. 

“My sweet boy,” she said patting his hand, “You know I think I have an idea that might just suit us both. If you keep the rats out of this house why, you can stay up there just as long as you wish and I’ll not ask after a penny’s rent.” 

A wide smile split the boy’s face and he purred, “Well if you are _sure_ ma’am, I would absolutely adore to be in your service.” His smile was so full of sunshine that she was helpless but to parrot it back to him. 

“Let me show you your room, then, now what is it you said your name was?” 

“John,” he said with what was near to lasciviousness in his tone, “John Kearns.” 

“Oh,” she exclaimed patting his hand again, “My darling grandson is named Johnny also, now let me show you that room and I suppose you can take a look at those rats.” 

It was impossible to have missed the way his eyes flashed at that, but she made no remark upon it. She looked up the stairs and spied Pellinore. 

“Well look at my luck, not rushing off too fast are you Master Warthrop? Wouldn’t you show young Johnny here that room next to yours? My old knees do hate these stairs.” She pressed a key into the boy’s hand. 

The boy gave her a parting smile then ascended the stairs to Pellinore. 

Pellinore looked passed the boy to his landlady, he had been rushing off, but she had been upset with him in the past and he had no wish to repeat her refusal to take down his laundry. 

“Of course, Mrs. Trumple,” he said stiffly. 

“Good boy, Pellinore, thank you.” 

Pellinore shifted his attention to the boy whose wide fawn’s eyes were looking at him, he lifted a hand, “Pellinore, was it?” 

“Warthrop, yes,” Pellinore said, taking his hand with some discomfort, “A pleasure, Johnny Kearns, you said it was?” he said, watching the boy. 

His nose wrinkled, “John.” 

“Ah, yes, John, the room she gave away is just up here.” Oddly unwilling to turn his back on Kearns he forced himself around and went back up the stairs to the corner of the second floor to the door at a ninety degree angle from his own, “It is here, you’ll find it in order, I believe, perhaps dusty.” 

Kearns spun the key around his finger with a giddy little grin and unlocked the door. It screeched on its hinges as it opened. 

Pellinore peered into the room over Kearns’ shoulder, it wasn’t hard, the boy stood more than a head shorter than himself. Compared to Pellinore’s comfortable room this was hardly more than a cupboard. It looked, in fact, as if it used to be a closet rather than a proper room. Murky light came from a small window on the far side and the angle of the house’s roof intersected the ceiling, making it slope sharply down. 

Pellinore could not imagine lodging in such a sordid affair, but the boy seemed positively thrilled. He strode into the room and paced its perimeter, stopped only when the ceiling became too low ever for him. 

Pellinore remained in the doorway, “Had you gotten anything else out of Mrs. Trumple I would have stepped in,” he said, frowning, “What sort of person wheedles old ladies?” 

Kearns spun around and regarded him, he frowned for a second but, just as quickly, replaced his frown with a smile, “When did I do any wheedling? We made a fair arrangement, her and I. She wasn’t even renting the room.” 

“You intended to trick her,” Pellinore accused, “You don’t make a shilling per rat down the street.” 

He widened his eyes innocently, “How is it any fault of mine that she doesn’t know the going price for rat hunting?” The innocent eyes faltered when he smirked smugly. 

Pellinore sneered a little in distaste, “You’re taking pride in pulling one over an old woman?” 

Kearns’ eyebrows rose and he grinned, “You don’t think I could pull one over you?” 

“No.” 

He winked, “I bet I could.”

Pellinore replied stiffly, “I have somewhere I need to be, enjoy your closet.” 

“I shall!” He called after him as Pellinore spun on his heel and went back down the stairs. 

John watched the gangly not quite man stalk away, smirking to himself. He was bored of killing rats, but closet though this might be, it was better than the stable he’d been sleeping in. And free too. 

He whistled to himself and, looking over his shoulder to make sure tall, dark, and gloomy was really gone, he allowed himself a moment of victory. “Well, it’s certainly bigger than my last place,” he said to himself. 

But he had work to do if he didn’t want to sleep on the floor. 

He carefully relocked his door and tucked his key into his pocket, patting it tenderly. He went downstairs, Mrs. Trumple was waiting for him at the bottom. He beamed at her, “This arrangement will be absolutely splendid,” he said with a wink. 

“Mind you start on those rats this evening, young man,” she said, wagging a finger at him. 

He laid a hand on his chest, “You wound me, as though I would ever do anything less.” 

He gave her a final wink and stepped smartly out of the door, the grin sliding off of his face the moment his back was turned. Someday he would be a doctor and have enough money for an entire house where he could live alone and no one would ever demand he be anywhere. 

But for now he was in the battered trousers of someone four inches taller than him and only threadbare suspenders keeping them up. 

A wave of rage flooded through him and he gritted his teeth. He wanted to rip these vagrant’s clothes off of his skin. He resisted the impulse. He had nothing else to wear. Soon he would. All his money now could go to things he wanted rather than cajoling a night’s rest from pub owners and stable keeps.

Alright. He stopped at the corner of the street and leaned against a wall of a building. Old panic had started to overcome him. His heart skittered in his chest nearly painfully. He shut his eyes and made himself breath slowly. He was alright. Everything was going to work out. He had a place to stay. He needed furniture and blankets and clothes. Then a rifle. Then the rest of the money he made he could save up for tuition. If he was going to be a doctor, he needed to go to school. 

His plan was going to work. It was already working. He had the roof over his head, even if his neighbor was too prying for his liking. He reaffixed a sly little grin on his face and launched off the building into the city.

### December 1872, Cambridge

Pellinore’s head snapped up from the textbook he had been desperately reading in preparation for a final exam. He had not noticed the dimming of his lamp until it flickered out, leaving him in the semidarkness. The fire in the grate provided some light and desperately needed warmth to fight the cold from the raging storm outside. But it was not nearly bright enough to read by.

He got up and poked a bit more fuel into his fire, then he fumbled into the cupboard where he kept the fuel for his lamp and scrabbled in the dark for it. He found the bottle and rattled it. No oil splashed with in. He swore and threw the empty bottle, remembering now that he was all but snowed in that he had been meaning to buy more but had forgotten more than thrice. The bottle hit his armchair and clattered, unbroken onto the ground. 

He picked up his book and scooted right next to the fire. He swore and scrambled back. Not only was it not enough light but it was far too hot that close. 

He stood to think and clasped his hands behind his back. Reminding himself too much of his father, he unclasped them and crossed his arms instead. The book demanded to be studied and he was not going to find sleep until it was. There were jets in the hall but not a very good place to sit comfortably. The tenant who lived below him had borrowed oil from him before but he had left to visit family over the holidays. Pellinore supposed he could break in... or there was the boy next door. 

The unease he felt over him was ridiculous. He _had_ taken care of the rats as he had promised, within just a few days of moving in. He had not spoken to Pellinore since October. It was not so much a chilliness, but that the boy kept such peculiar hours that they rarely ran into each other. 

Well he certainly could not go and fetch more fuel now. Not at this hour and in this weather. With a heavy sigh he opened his door and knocked upon that of his mysterious neighbor. 

“What?” a rather irate voice called from within. 

“I- It is your neighbor.” 

“What do you want?” 

“Pellinore Warthrop.” 

There was some shuffling behind the door and it opened. The blonde boy was glowering at him, He was fully dressed and swaddled in a quilt, even so the tips of his ears and point of his nose were pink with cold. His lips were pale, nearly blue. 

“I _know_ who you are,” he said with chattering teeth, “I asked what you wanted.” 

Even from the doorway Pellinore could feel the cold coming from his room. It appeared as though it really had been a closet, for there was no fireplace and a whistle of the wind came through the window. 

But a light burned on the bedside table. 

“I’ve run out of fuel for my lamp,” Pellinore said, “I’d like to borrow some.” 

Kearns rocked on his feet and glanced into the warmly glowing room Pellinore had just come out of. Pellinore noted that he was wearing at least three pairs of socks. 

“No,” Kearns said briefly. 

“No?” Pellinore asked, stricken. Not only could he see the lamp, full of oil burning on the table, but a bottle filled with the stuff right next to it, far more than any one person could use in a single night, or in a single week. 

“No,” Kearns reiterated, “But I will make you a trade.” 

“A trade?” Pellinore asked skeptically, “What could you possibly want from me?” 

“Your room.” 

“What?” Pellinore hissed, “You could not possibly think I would trade my living quarters for lamp oil!” 

The boy scoffed, then sneezed, his hand peeked up from under his quilt to wipe at his nose, “No, just.... let me sit in your room, I’ll bring my lamp, we can both use it.” 

Pellinore could not say that this was not fair, nor that he didn’t understand the boy’s position, but he didn’t want someone else in his living space. He made a face, shifting uncomfortably with the dilemma of not properly studying or letting Kearns into his home. 

“Fine,” he grumbled at long last.

The boy shuffled back to his bed and retrieved a rather heavy book, stuck it under his arm and hefted his lamp in the other. Without another word he followed Pellinore back into his mercifully warm quarters. 

Kearns audibly sighed when he was inside Pellinore’s rooms and, without bothering to ask, set down his things and commenced to drag Pellinore’s favorite chair right up to the fireside.

“What the devil are you doing?” 

He looked over his shoulder at Pellinore, fixing him with those fawnish eyes, wide and innocent, “I’m quite cold.” 

“You...that is my chair,” Pellinore protested lamely. 

Kearns stood up and dropped the quilt, revealing an ugly knit sweater beneath it, the sleeves of which were quite rolled up so that he might properly use his hands. He smiled condescendingly and said, “You, Mr. Wartrhop, are a font of cunning, these are all your chairs, for we are in your room.” 

“That is not what I meant,” Pellinore fumed, already regretting he had allowed this imp inside his chambers. 

“Then what is it that you meant?” Kearns asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“You cannot sit in that chair,” Pellinore said, attempting to sound firm, “It is...mine.” 

“So you said.” 

Pellinore looked at his textbook longingly, frustrated that this could not be simple. He gestured to a different chair, “Use that one, it is perfectly acceptable.” 

“Then this one is not acceptable? Or is this one preferable?” 

“It is preferable, which is why I prefer it!” 

Kearns brushed back his hair, which now fell is gentle waves and golden curls passed his ears, “I am your guest, oughten I be given the preferable chair?” 

Pellinore lost his temper, “You are _not_ a guest. You are a parasite I am allowing here only for the use of your lamplight! Our arrangement specified only that you be allowed into my chambers, not that you were to be given any sort of seat! I would be well within my bounds to make you stand at the door!” 

The corners of Kearns’ mouth twitched upward, “Bravo, Pellinore, may I call you Pellinore? Of course I will sit somewhere other than _your_ chair. Why did you not simply say that it was so important to you?” 

Pellinore gaped at him as he pulled the second chair close to the fire, and an end table after that, situated between them. It was on this table he put the lamp. Without another word he snuggled himself into the second chair and hefted his book onto his lap, letting it fall open at the marker. 

Relieved, Pellinore took his own textbook and sat on the second chair, too warm by half this close to the fire but happy at least that he had enough light to read by. 

Kearns was not nearly as diligent as Pellinore, as the clock passed midnight every few minutes he would nod off then jerk awake and give a little shake of his head. 

At one o’clock Pellinore, satisfied with his readiness, wanting nothing more than to sleep and rid himself of the leech to his concentration, stood up.

“Going to bed already?” Kearns asked, trying and failing to hide the disappointment in his voice. He had only just peeled off his extra layers of socks, and his lips were no longer tinged in blue. 

“Yes,” Pellinore said, opening the door, “Goodnight.” 

Kearns fidgeted, “I ought to right your things first,” he said and took a good long while pushing back the chairs and table, going so far as to go to a knee before the second chair to turn it just so. 

“That is satisfactory,” Pellinore growled through clenched teeth, “Goodnight.” 

The boy took up his lamp and book and returned to his room. 

Pellinore locked the door behind Kearns and succumb to sleep. 

The next day, bundled from head to foot against the cold and vicious snow, he trundled off to his exam. It went exceptionally well and he left the examination room quite pleased with himself. Two more days of examinations and he would be finished with the semester. He went immediately back home upon completion of his exam, there was more studying to do tonight. 

He paused when he got home to make himself something to eat and make a cup of tea. At two o’clock he set to work. At four thirty he swore and his head shot up from where it had been bent over his studies. _The oil_. He had entirely forgotten. The shop that sold it, the only one in walking distance in this weather, closed precisely at five. He scrambled up to his cupboard to fetch the bottle to be refilled. It was not there. 

He tore out the contents of the cupboard, looking for the damnable little bottle. Certainly he could just buy another bottle but that would be an unnecessary cost. He stretched his fingers to the very back of the cupboard before he remembered having thrown the bottle in irritation the day before. He near to dove toward his sitting chair, on his hands and knees looking for the bottle. He wrent the area apart looking for it before finally unearthing it stuck in the cushion of the chair. He stood up, victoriously holding the bottle aloft. He checked his watch and his shoulders crumpled. Five o’clock. 

From experience he knew that the store was closed and that no amount of knocking upon the window would open it. Already it was growing dark outside. He groaned and rubbed his fingers into his eyes. He dropped back into chair and studied until the light simply would not allow it. Stubbornly he moved directly beneath the window and stole the last vestiges of daylight. 

It was precisely when he would truly have had to give up studying and feeling quite desperate that a knock fell upon the door. He took a long time to stand and walk to the door, knowing very well who was behind it. 

As he had suspected, John Kearns grinned at him from the hallway. He was dressed much as he had been the night before, still swaddled in that quilt. The only difference this night was that his pallid lips were turned up in a jovial little grin. He held his brightly burning lamp and said, “Good evening, Pellinore.” 

“What do you want, Kearns?” Pellinore said brusquely. 

“Nothing at all,” he said, having the indecency to sound insulted, “I have only realized I quite forgot my stockings here yesterday.” He peered around Pellinore, “Quite dark in there, Pellinore. I can’t imagine you are getting much reading done in that.” 

With the lamp held right out before him the temptation was too great. He only wanted to _work_.

“Come in then,” he growled, “The same arrangement as yesterday, which is what you were here for anyway.” 

Smugly Kearns stepped into the room. He lost no time reorganizing the room as he wanted. Scooting up his chair to the fire. Pellinore drew a chair up close enough to use Kearns’ lamp and went back to studying. 

Kearns spent the first fifteen minutes merely stretching his bare feet before the fire, warming them, then he did the same for his hands. Today he unravelled some, first unwinding himself from the quilt, then losing the heavy sweater, leaving only the thinnest shirtsleeves. Thus disrobed he took out a book, a novel this time, and lounged in his chair, reading. 

On the third day Pellinore was stymied again from fetching his own lamp oil. The storm raging around them was so fierce and bitterly cold that the shop did not even open. Not that that meant any delay in his exams. 

As if by magic Kearns appeared at the door just as it got dark. He did not even have a pretense this time, just set the lamp upon the table and sat in the chair he had not rearranged the night previous he snuggled in warmly.

Pellinore had already studied most of the day for this, his last, exam. Already by the time Kearns arrived he felt quite confident. He would only need to put up with his company for a few hours. Irately he glowered at the boy wondering why he looked so damned happy to be here. Then Pellinore realized what ought to have been quite obvious, his little unheated closet must be simply dreadful in this weather. Intolerable to sleep in. 

Distracted he rose from his chair. 

Kearns looked at him with big eyes, “Bed already?” 

“No, merely making tea.” 

“Oh, I would love some! I take it with three sugars and cream.” 

Pellinore, having not offered him tea, scowled, “I don’t keep cream.” 

“But you like cream,” he argued. 

Pellinore’s scowl deepened considerably, “How could you know that?” 

“It’s how you took your tea at the cafe, you drank enough of it.” 

Pellinore shifted with discomfort, “That was...yes...I do prefer cream...but it sours before I can finish it.” 

“I have some, I could get it if you like.” 

Pellinore hemmed and hawed over this small decision, he did not want the irritating creature to believe they shared any sort of cameraderie. But he did prefer cream, “Fine.” 

Kearns bounded to his feet, “Excellent! I shall be back in a single shake.” 

He disappeared briefly to his own room and came back with cream that was quite cold. Pellinore set to preparing tea. 

“What is it that you’re reading?” Pellinore asked, he had been so studious about it and to Pellinore’s knowledge, he was not a student. 

“Health and Longevity,” Kearns said. 

Pellinore interrupted as Kearns opened his mouth to say more, “By Beale?” 

Kearns looked delighted, “Yes! You know of it? Have you read it?”

“I know of it, I have not read it. You’re a student of medicine then?” 

For some reason this made Kearns scowl, “No,” he said shortly. He covered this swiftly and grinned, turning the questioning around on Pellinore, “But you are a student, are you not, what is it you study? I suspect Law, you seem the type.” 

“I want to be a poet.” He said it shyly. More than once that admission had been met with derision, by his father, professors, near strangers. 

But Kearns only beamed at him and closed his eyes, lifting a hand theatrically and reciting,  
“ _The Demon, in my chamber high,_  
_This morning came to visit me,_  
_And, thinking he would find some fault,_  
_He whispered: ‘I would know of thee.’”_

Pellinore smiled despite himself, stepping toward Kearns, “Baudelaire, he is even better in French, have you read it in the original?” 

Pink tinged Kearns cheeks, “I don’t know any French. Recite it, can you?” 

Pellinore took another step toward him, his countenance breaking out in a real smile, he did recite it, repeating first the stanza Kearns had said in its original flowing French and carrying on, all the way through the poem. 

The very corners of Kearns pouting lips were turned up by the time Pellinore fell silent. His grey eyes were fixed upon Pellinore’s. “Do you favor Baudelaire?”

Pellinore shrugged, “Not in particular.” 

“Then your favorite? What is that?” 

“My favorite?” 

“Yes, the poem you like best of all others, what is that?” 

Pellinore shuffled and bit his lip, “I ought not- it is...it isn’t yet published...it has been sent to me by a friend.” 

Kearns, hair truly golden in the firelight, long lashes dark on his pale cheeks pouted ever so slightly, looking truly disappointed, “I shan’t be able to recall it from a single reading, what would be the harm? What would I do, publish it myself?” 

Temptation too great Pellinore relented, “The English translation or the French?” 

“English first.” 

“ _I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road._  
_I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose soundlessly._  
_My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a flower who told me its name._  
_I laughed at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the silvered summit, I came upon the goddess._  
_Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms._  
_Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she fled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar on marble wharves._  
_Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the bottom of the wood._  
_When I awoke, it was noon._ ”

Kearns had set his elbow upon the arm of his chair, propping his chin upon his hand. His head was slightly tilted looking up at Pellinore, gently he said, “Now the French.” 

Pellinore tilted his head back as he recited it again in the original, closing his eyes to bring the words to mind. He could feel his heart speed as he recited, could feel his breath coming to life. He gesticulated passionately with the rising and falling of the stanzas. When he opened his eyes again at the poem’s conclusion Kearns was still staring at him, grey eyes glittering in the warm light. 

Pellinore flushed, squirming beneath the weight of Kearns’ attention. Behind him the kettle whistled and in utter relief he spun away from Kearns to finish the tea. 

“Three sugars you said?” 

“Yes,” his voice was still smooth and gentle. 

Pellinore fussed with his tea, pouring in a liberal amount of cream and mixing in three sugars, although he gagged to think how sweet it would be, and handed it over to Kearns. 

“Thank you, Pellinore,” he said softly, taking the cup, “I don’t suppose you will recite me any of your own?” 

Pellinore stiffened over his tea, “My own what?” 

“Your work,” Kearns said, “You said _you_ wanted to be a poet, surely you have written something.” 

“Nothing of value,” Pellinore said shortly. He took his tea and circled wide around Kearns to his own chair, “You’ve distracted me for too long, Kearns, I have to study.” 

“John.” 

“What?” 

“You may call me John, if you wish.” 

Pellinore looked back up at him once and then riveted himself back to his studies. John didn’t say another word, but sipped his tea and went back to his own reading. 

It was two in the morning before Pellinore, with itching eyes, resisted the pull to keep studying that he might rest. It would not do to refuse to sleep before an exam. He rose and closed his book. 

“I am retiring for the evening,” he said. He would not say he had not enjoyed the other boy’s company, but he sorely wished for solitude. 

“Is that how you politely turn me out of your door?” John asked lightly. 

“Yes.” 

“Very well, I shall take my lamp with me.” He moved the lamp and then pushed the chairs back to where he had found them. He collected his lamp, book, and quilt, as well as his discarded extra socks and went to the door, “Until next time, Pellinore.” 

“I will purchase more lamp fuel by tomorrow,” Pellinore said, somewhat confused, “It would be very unlikely that I find myself in this predicament again.” 

“Well don’t let that stop you,” John said, disappearing out the door. 

The next day, and rather unhappy with himself for it, it was Pellinore who knocked on John’s door. He had enjoyed reciting poetry. Now that his exams were concluded and he were less on edge he would have enjoyed doing it again. He had been certain that John would agree to spend the evening in Pellinore’s much warmer quarters. But there was no answer at the door. 

Nor was there the next day, nor the next. An odd nagging over John plucked at Pellinore. So much that he would peer at the gap in John’s door on his way up the stairs to see if he had returned home.

But as far as he could tell, John had vanished. 

Pellinore, now the only person in the student populated building during Christmas season, for even Mrs. Trumple had gone to London, settled into the enjoyable task of secluded reading. He had no schoolwork between semesters and could dig into the stack of books he had collected over the course of the year. And, of course, he did hope to finish at least a single poem he could stand to reread. 

John, he was forced to assume after a week of his absence, had simply gone home to family for the holidays. But he had not been so irritating, and even Pellinore could not deny the allure a warm room would have over a frozen closet. He wanted to talk about poetry with him again, without the voice in the back of his head that chided and told him to get back to work. He felt foolish for having been won over so easily. But it was not often he found someone to share his passions with. 

It was not until four days into his break that there came a knock upon his door. It was too late to really be appropriate for a caller, but Pellinore rose from his desk where he had been scribbling and opened the door. Suspecting already who it was before he had opened it. 

In a dashing, and tight fitting, new coat stood a grinning John Kearns, snowflakes still melting in his golden hair. “I don’t suppose you’re feeling peckish, Pellinore?” 

“It is nearly eleven in the evening, John.” 

John raised an eyebrow, “Then you aren’t hungry?” 

Pellinore’s stomach reminded him viciously that he was indeed hungry. He’d been rather caught up in his writing, not that he had accomplished more than a few weak stanzas, and hadn’t eaten all day. 

He stepped aside, “Come in, I assumed you were...home.” 

John’s smile turned stiff, “For Christmas, do you mean? My little nook is the only home I have I am afraid. And you? America too far for the holidays?” 

It was Pellinore’s turn to go rather stiff, “Yes.” 

John slid passed him and set the food down upon the table, “Well, I have brought all sorts of goodies.” 

Pellinore looked down upon the pile of cakes, cookies, and candies, “....I thought you said you brought _food_.” 

He shrugged, “Desserts then,” he corrected, “It _is_ eleven at night. Haven’t you already eaten?” 

“...No.” 

“Well whose fault is that?” 

“I don’t suppose there are scones somewhere in here?” 

“Yes, I believe so, actually, under the peanut brittle, just there.” 

Pellinore took all four of them, “Tea?” 

“Please!” John said with a smile, “Shall I get the cream again?” 

“Yes.” 

John fetched his cream again and came back without his new coat. His clothing had taken a spike in quality, his trousers now fit him properly and the vest he wore over his shirt was quite fine. He looked less diminutive in clothing his size, more the young man he was than a boy.

“So are you going to read me what you were working on?” John nearly purred. 

Pellinore blushed, “It-it isn’t ready.” 

“Then read me something that is.” 

“I have nothing that is!” 

“Nothing?” John said, “But I see you writing for hours.” 

“Where do you see me?” Pellinore asked, frowning. 

“One of the three places you ever go: here, your school, or the cafe. And you know I still hunt there.” 

“Hunt rats.” 

“...Yes,” John said unhappily, “hunt rats. But do you know that sometimes I pretend they are great beasts? How foolish is that?”

“Quite foolish,” Pellinore said, then rethinking himself when John looked offended said, “What beasts?” 

John laughed, “The biggest and toothiest I can think of, lions usually, does something bigger and toothier come to mind?” 

Pellinore, who had a wide range of bigger and toothier beasts in his repertoire hastily dunked his scone into his tea and devoured it. With half of it still in his mouth he said, “Did you bring these here so you could sit in my well heated apartment?” 

John shivered theatrically, “I will not say it isn’t a perk, Pellinore, but no. I have something for you.” 

“You do? Something for me?” 

“Yes!”

“Where is it?” 

John smirked, “Do you like a bit of mystery, Pellinore?” 

Pellinore tilted his head, staring at him, very seriously he said, “Yes.” 

“Then tell me what I’ve brought you.” 

Pellinore’s face alit with curiosity and his eyes darted about, they dragged up John’s body, looking for bulges that might mean a trinket of some kind. When he found none he looked back up at John’s smirking face. A minute passed of Pellinore staring at him with nearly glowing eyes, before a triumphal smile erupted on his face, he made his guess that was half rooted in his own hopefulness, “Poetry.” 

John laughed breathlessly, “Impressively sharp, Pellinore!” 

Dusky red flooded Pellinore’s cheeks, glowing under the praise, “Recite it, then.”

“Some of yours first.” 

Pellinore sat back in his chair and bit into his last scone, “Then you have not brought me a gift, as you promised, John, you have brought a bartering chip.” 

John looked at him through his long lashes, “Perhaps you will consider it tribute.” 

Pellinore scowled in confusion, “Tribute?” 

“Yes, and if it proves sufficient,” he positively purred, “I will be _rewarded_.”

Pellinore hesitated, “Rewarded? With _my_ poetry?” 

John lifted a brow delicately and nodded. 

Unsure of himself Pellinore nodded, “Alright,” then he grinned, “Produce your tribute.” 

John’s eyes glimmered and he bit his lower lip softly before he began, drawing a slip of paper from his pocket and reading in a voice like a gentle hum,  
‘ _When I have fears that I may cease to be_  
_Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,_  
_Before high piled books, in charact'ry,_  
_Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;_  
_When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,_  
_Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,_  
_And think that I may never live to trace_  
_Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;_  
_And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!_  
_That I shall never look upon thee more,_  
_Never have relish in the faery power_  
_Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore_  
_Of the wide world I stand alone, and think_  
_Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.’”_

His voice trailed off as he concluded the recitation. 

It was Pellinore now who stared at him, transfixed, feeling split apart, bared open to John’s devouring gaze. He had leaned toward John while he had spoken his lips were slightly parted. Leaning so far onto his elbows across the table he was nearly lifted from his seat, he spoke breathlessly, in a hush that stole passed his lips without his control,  
“ _Haloed in a golden light,_  
_His lips spilled forth his song,_  
_and though he thought he looked at me,_  
_my soul he looked upon.”_  
As soon as he realized he had spoken he went violently red, straightening in his seat and going so stiff he was nearly rigid. He was going to be laughed at. He had ruined it. It had been trite, foolish, pedestrian. And John’s gift had been so perfect. John surely would mock him. 

John indeed frowned for a moment and tilted his head delicately, “Pellinore,” he said slowly, “Was that yours?” 

Wishing very much that he could flee Pellinore nodded. He tried to ready himself for the mocking laughter that was sure to follow. 

John’s face, his eyes, softened as though layers were falling away, he spoke without fluttering eyelashes or teasing smirks, “Did you write that just now...for me?” 

Pellinore clamped closed his teeth, swallowing the bile that rose up on his tongue. He felt his throat constricting. John looked at him, waiting for an answer. Horribly, he nodded. 

“Say it again.”

Pellinore, who had believed his imagination had plumbed the bottom of the cruelty Kearns had available to him, was startled at the atrocity implicit in this request. He wanted his voice not to sound so tight when he accused, “You are mocking me.” 

John’s eyebrows leapt up in surprise, “No, Pellinore, I am not.” He glanced down then back up through his lashes, “You wrote me poetry. I only want to hear it again that I might remember it better, I do not have your gift for recitation.” 

Shy and uncertain, Pellinore repeated the lines. He liked them even less on the second reading.

John mouthed the words with him, as though attempting to affix it into his mind. 

Pellinore’s heart stampeded under his chest. He felt as though he had evaded a snare, that any moment John would see his error and begin to laugh in earnest. He looked down at his hands and whispered, “Did you truly like it?” 

John smiled, “Yes, Pellinore. I don’t suppose you would consent to write it down for me.” 

The further he was convinced John that had indeed enjoyed his impromptu and, in his opinion not very good, burst of poetry, the headier he became. His urges to secrecy were rapidly beginning to shift and he wanted to shove all of his scraps of poems under John’s nose for approval. He rose and crossed the room to his desk. He bent over it and scribbled out the lines he had just recited when he had he hesitated then at the top of the paper scrap he scrawled, ‘ _For John_.’

He came to John’s side of the table and held out the paper. 

John took it reverently and Pellinore saw him mouth, ‘For John,’ with the barest trace of a smile. In a fond and tender voice, not looking up from the poetry he said, “Your penmanship is atrocious.” 

Pellinore did not know if he ought to feel uncomfortable or warm at John’s obvious enjoyment, in his confusion he changed the topic, “Who wrote the one you brought?” 

John looked up from his scrap of paper, tucking it into his breast pocket, “Hm? Oh! John Keats, I thought you should hear something English, too much French will muddle your mind you know.” 

“...That isn’t true.” 

John laughed, “Perhaps not, but still, you needed something from the crowning jewel of human culture.” 

Pellinore scowled, “You and I view the English differently.”

John laughed and leapt up, sticking a piece of peanut brittle between his lips, around it he said, “So what is it you do on your holidays, Pellinore? Nothing to study for in the middle of the night.”

“I read usually,” Pellinore said, “I don’t often get the chance to read novels, I...that is what I always do on my holidays.” 

“Novels? Good ones?” 

“Yes, good ones, why would I waste my time with a poor one?” 

John shrugged and found his stack of them next to his desk, he crouched in front of it and pulled one out from the middle so swiftly the rest merely thumped down rather than cascading into a mess. He tossed it to Pellinore, who almost didn’t catch it. Then John flopped down on top of Pellinore’s unmade bed and reclined, putting his hands behind his head, “Read it to me.” 

Pellinore had no idea if this is what friends usually acted like, having never had any close companions during any year of his schooling. But the biting edge of loneliness which was a pain so constant he had quite forgotten about it eased with John grinning at him in his own apartment. 

“Can’t you read it yourself?” 

John, whose eyes were closed, said, “Of course I can, but I want you to read it.” 

Pellinore stood and tossed the remaining cakes and candies into the bag they came from them deposited them on the bed, “Move over.” 

The bed was pressed against the wall on one side and only where John was currently lounging was close enough to the nightstand to read by the light of a lamp. 

Enthusiastically John moved to the other side and Pellinore situated the lamp and sat, leaning on the headboard. Then, munching on John’s desserts, he began to read. 

An hour into reading, his throat growing quite tired, he glanced down and found John to be entirely asleep. 

“John?” He said softly. 

John made no reaction. He was curled on his side, face looking quite angelic without his usual grins and smirks. 

Pellinore hesitated. It was not uncommon for companions to share sleeping arrangements only he had never done it. But he found he did not want to wake John only to chase him back to his frozen closet. He looked quite peaceful with a tiny flush on his cheeks. 

Pellinore got up slowly as to not wake him and slipped into the watercloset to ready himself for bed. He came back relieved and in nightclothes. Only then did he notice that John still had his shoes on. 

He stood looking at them awkwardly for a long time then, trying to be gentle, eased the shoes from his feet and put them under the bed. John shifted a little, but he was well and truly asleep. He scooped up the remaining desserts and put them back on the table then crawled into bed, pulling the covers over them both. He rolled onto his side, away from John, and something crunched under him. 

He pulled out what he thought would be refuse from the snacks but found the scrap on which he had written his poem. He put it on the nightstand and blew out the lamp, then allowed himself to sleep. 

When John awoke he was comfortable, warm, and supremely well rested: three sensations he was entirely unused to. Rather confused, he sat up and startled to find that he was not in his frozen little coffin but still in Pellinore’s room, and that Pellinore himself was curled up beside him, still fast asleep. 

A different sort of warmth entirely spread through his belly. Pellinore had allowed him to stay. And taken off his shoes. He got up carefully, picking his way over Pellinore so as not to disturb him. He hunted out his shoes and slipped them on. 

He spent a moment looking through Pellinore’s larder and, finding it shockingly empty, took his leave, intending to come back with breakfast. He made a pit stop in his own room, which was quite cold and unwelcoming, for his coat then went down to the market. When he returned, laden with breakfast accoutrements he did not bother to knock, but came right in. Pellinore was sitting up in bed, looking tousled and grumpy. 

His dark hair was in a tangle around his head and he glowered at John, “I thought you’d left.” 

“I did, Pellinore, but only briefly. You were remarkably poorly provisioned and I thought to make you breakfast. You did allow me to stay in your cozy quarters last night after all.” 

“I do not usually eat breakfast.” 

“Or dinner apparently,” John remarked and put all his purchases down near Pellinore’s miniscule stove. He prodded the stove’s fire into life and set about making sausages, eggs, bacon, and toast as well as some tea fixed to Pellinore’s liking. 

Pellinore himself was clearly not a person made for mornings. He dragged himself out of bed and disappeared without a word to the water closet, coming back only slightly more put together. He sat at the table and with bleary eyes accepted a cup of tea with a grunt of thanks. 

“The cold snap has broken,” John reported happily as he turned the bacon, “It is quite lovely out this morning.” 

“Hmm,” was Pellinore’s only response. 

John tipped the breakfast onto two plates and gave one to Pellinore, the other he himself sat down with on his side of the table. 

For someone who claimed not to eat breakfast, Pellinore dug into his with relish, eating it at twice the speed of John. John finished his at a leisurely pace. Just as there was no fireplace in his closet, neither was there a stove of any sort and warm breakfasts were not something he usually got to enjoy. 

“There is a… small gathering of students tonight that I have received an invitation to,” Pellinore said hesitantly, looking at his plate, “I had not planned on going… but perhaps you would like to accompany me?” Only when he had finished with the entire question did he look up. 

John looked extremely put out, his already pouty lips pouting even more, “I - can’t tonight. I have other arrangements.” 

“Oh,” Pellinore said, disappointed as well, “Well...oh.” 

“I ought to be back by late this evening, perhaps we could continue with that book.” 

“You fell asleep,” Pellinore protested. 

“Only because it was very late and I was very warm, I did like it.”

“Yes, yes alright.” 

“Will you be back from your party by then?” 

Pellinore shifted uncomfortably, “I probably -,” he was not planning to go if he were going on his own, as he had not planned to go when he first received the invitation, “Yes, I will be back.” 

“Then I shall see you tonight.” 

John leapt to his feet, “But I am afraid I really must be off, thank you again for allowing me the warmth of your bed.” He followed this with a wink that made Pellinore blush. 

John spun on his heel, picking up his coat on the way. He made it all the way to the door before he patted his breast pocket and swiveled back to the room, stricken. His eyes were wide and his brows drawn together, “My poem! It isn’t in my pocket.” His voice was almost comically upset. 

“It’s on the nightstand,” Pellinore said, “It fell out of your pocket as you slept. But surely it cannot mean that much to you.”

John snatched the paper from the nightstand, flicked it open to verify it was indeed the correct slip of paper, and stuck it back into his pocket. “Oh, I can assure you that it does, my dear Pellinore.” And with that he disappeared through the door. 

Pellinore, who had no interest in going to any sort of social gathering and had only brought it up as an excuse to spend more time with John spent his afternoon much as he usually would. He tucked himself into his desk and worked on the fledgling poem he had given to John. What he really wanted was to be able to present a completed poem when he arrived in the evening. The first stanza had come so naturally but the rest refused.

He felt embarrassed when he tried to write it, even more so when he tried to bring John’s face to mind, his eyes wide, lips soft and slightly agape. Pellinore distracted himself recreating in his mind’s eye the breathless quality of John’s voice when he had first recited to him. For some reason, the thought of it made his heart pound. The words flowed off of his pen and his heart skittered in his breast. He thought of the way he had felt open and gazed upon when John had read Keats to him. As though he had known. As though simply looking upon Pellinore was enough to see to his dusty corners. A jittering energy coursed through him and he was a force not to be stopped. The completed product was too long, rambling, expressive but confused. But he could not bring himself to cut any of it. He could only recopy it without his crossings out and revisions. He even tried to use his best penmanship for the task. 

He labelled it again, ‘ _For John_ ,’ and signed it, ‘ _From Pellinore, for the Keats._ ’

He had much he wanted to do. But he could not ply himself to any task. Every few minutes he would reread his work and have a fit of unnerve over giving it to John. Or fall to distraction and check the time, counting down the hours to when his company would arrive. 

At ten in the evening, he had not gone to his party, he could do barely any more than wander around his apartment in anticipation. He checked the time fastidiously. 

By eleven he was trying to read but kept losing his page. 

By midnight his heart was heavy. 

At one in the morning he tentatively knocked on John’s door and received no reply. He dragged himself back to his own rooms and sat heavily upon his chair. He hadn’t bothered to light his lamp and was illuminated only by the dull light of the fire in the grate. 

It was foolish to be so disappointed. He barely knew the man. But he sat before the fire, glowering at it. He didn’t have to have a light to go back over the poem he had intended for his new friend. Of course, he thought with a twist of embarrassment, he did not know if it was the sort of thing one gave to friends. There was much in the poem about his eyelashes and lips. But it was only what Pellinore had noticed. Surely John would not read harm into that. He did have to be honest didn’t he, was that not the whole point of poetry?

But perhaps he had already gone too far. Perhaps John had never intended to come back, had put on a theatrical show of liking his poetry in order to not hurt him. But had fled into the night, never to return. He launched off his chair to pace about the room, pulling at his bottom lip in consternation. 

In excruciating detail he went over the events of the night before, desperate to discover where he had gone wrong. It had the reverse effect of plunging him deeper into his despair John had not arrived. 

He dropped onto the bed, energy sapping away from him and melancholy weighing him down. It ought not surprise him that John did not want to come back. He had not managed to acquire any friends in the last two years at Cambridge, nor the six years before that when he had been away at boarding school. Like an old and unwanted companion, the burden of loneliness sank back over him, engulfing him. 

Six days later, on Christmas day, exuberant as a child, John took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, vaulting up toward Pellinore’s door. He had not even been home yet. But a thrill was over him still. His blood was quick with it. 

He knocked rapidly on the door, his trophy clutched in his hand. 

“Pellinore! Open up!” He pounded again, “I can smell the fire, Pellinore, I know you’re home!” He felt a sudden and terrible blossoming of panic. It had been _six days_ since he had said he would come. Had he upset Pellinore? He did seem rather delicate. More aggressively he slammed his hand on the door, “Pellinore!” In a true panic he continued his pounding. 

Finally the door burst open. 

“WHAT?” The Pellinore who greeted him was not the Pellinore he had left behind. Instead of the unkept but clean and expensively dressed scholar was a wreaking mess. Certainly his trousers were always quite wrinkled and his shirt was never properly tucked in, but he was always rather clean. 

This Pellinore had oily and uncombed hair in a horrible tangle. He wore the same clothes John had last seen him in and he smelled of unwashed body and stale clothing. Dark circles were under his eyes, making him look ghoulish. John took a surprised step back. 

Pellinore looked down at John with wide eyes, his back stiffened. “You.” 

“Why yes, Pellinore, a bit later, perhaps, than I promised, but my affairs took rather longer to conclude than I had been led to believe. I do apologize.” 

Pellinore’s hands shot out and gripped John by the shoulders. “I thought you dead! Or gone!” 

John, increasingly bemused, smiled at him, surprised at his own lack of concern for being manhandled. “Not at all, merely waylaid. I’m sorry I missed our appointment. Had I had my way, I would have been here, not responsible for my own transportation you see.”

“Ah,” Pellinore released him and stepped back awkwardly, “....I…”

“You?” 

He jumped noticing for the first time, “You have a rifle.” 

John beamed, holding up his trophy “Yes! But I shan’t tell you the story now.” 

Pellinore glared, “Why not?” 

“Bathe first, my good man, then we can make up for lost time. Anyway, I need a bath as well, I stink of cow manure.” 

Two hours later, both of them properly bathed, saw John settling down in his favorite of Pellinore’s chairs, tea in hand. 

“I have been hunting!” Jack said. 

“A little much to take on a hunting trip for rats, isn’t it?” Pellinore asked, eyeing the rifle that John had brought with him and set upon the table. 

John glowered, “Not rats, wolves, I am moving up in the world.”

“You were hunting wolves?” Pellinore asked, standing up suddenly. 

“Yes, whatever is the matter?” 

“You might have told me!” 

John recoiled at the idea of reporting his goings on to anyone, heatedly he shot, “Why would I do that?” 

Pellinore looked at him incredulously, “You could have died! People _die_ hunting dangerous things! How did you even know they were wolves!” 

John wished very much he could help how touched he felt at Pellinore’s concern. It had been quite a long time since he could remember someone’s fear on his behalf, “Well what else could have been killing that farmer’s sheep?” 

“What else? What _else_?” Pellinore was pacing now, “Anything else!” 

“Well I have survived and come home with my very own rife,” John said, more than a little disconcerted at his friend’s behavior, “Isn’t it pretty?” 

Pellinore looked down at it, “Yes, quite.” 

“You didn’t even look at it!” John protested.

Pellinore stopped his pacing and sighed. He picked up the rifle and inspected it quite closely, commenting on its craftsmanship and intricate designs along the shaft. 

John glowed, “Isn’t is wonderful?” 

“You got this as payment?” 

“Yes! It was an heirloom of theirs.” 

“You took an heirloom?” 

John scoffed, “Well I did risk my life, and after all it might have been _anything_ killing those sheep.” His eyes glimmered at Pellinore in amusement. 

Pellinore relented, “I wrote you something.” 

John lit up, “You did?” he said very quickly. 

“Would you like to read it?” 

“No, I would like you to read it to me.” His heart had begun to flutter when Pellinore had worried over him and it had not stopped. 

Pink crept up Pellinore’s cheeks, but he fetched the poem, “I- it is...quite long.” 

“Even better.” 

“A...continuation of...of the first one,” his passion had given way to shyness. 

John gave him a delighted little smile and motioned for him to carry on. 

“I - I left it almost in the original...I mean...I hardly edited...I could not… it is my first in this style...I.” 

“I am on bated breath, Pellinore.” And he was, his stomach was churning in anticipation. An entire poem, just for him? Butterflies in his stomach seemed too weak a phrase. 

Pellinore began by reading but after the first stanza looked up and caught John’s eye and did not look away. He had read it so many times to himself he did not need to look at the paper. He watched John become how he had remembered him while he had been writing. Leaning slightly forward, soft lips parted, eyes nearly shimmering. 

Partway through John stood and stepped closer to him but Pellinore did not stop the recitation. 

His voice trailed off at the conclusion and he continued to look at John, who looked right back, only half a step away. 

In a shaking voice John asked, “All of that...for me?” 

“Yes.” A phrase concerning the pinkness of his lips had felt much different when read staring into John’s eyes rather than into a dying fire. “For you.”

John did not hesitate, he came forward and pressed his lips against Pellinore’s. The kiss was short and chaste and rather desperate. Pellinore’s brain erupted in messy thoughts that tangled over one another and refused to be understood. But the feeling in his stomach and shaking of his heart coalesced and he felt only loss when John not so much leapt back, as his feet remained close to Pellinore, but leaned away. His eyes had sprung back open the moment his lips had left Pellinore's and he breathed shallowly in gasping bursts.

Pellinore did not allow him to go far. As John leaned back Pellinore leaned forward, his long fingered hands burying themselves into John’s golden hair, pulling John back to him. He kissed him ardently, his eyes squeezed closed. John tugged him down lower by the collar. Though John's lips did not leave his, Pellinore felt John's smile against him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poems, in order of appearance:  
> 1\. Temptation - Charles Baudelaire  
> 2\. Dawn - Arthur Rimbaud  
> 3\. When I Have Fears - John Keats


	3. Winter 1872-Summer 1873

#  **Winter 1872 - Summer 1873**

### December 1872, Cambridge

“Pellinore?” John said when Pellinore finally released him. A smile was blooming across his face. 

Pellinore’s face was flushed, _he_ was not smiling. He stared down at John in what seemed to be utter confusion. 

“I- I have never…never been...”

“Kissed?” John finished for him. 

Pellinore nodded.

“Really?” John asked, “I find that difficult to believe.” 

Pellinore scowled, “Why?” 

John laughed, “Asks the handsome poet!” 

Pellinore blushed darkly, “Have you?” 

Although he tried to keep it affixed, John’s smile became something unsure, “Not like that.” 

Now it was Pellinore who laughed, his hands still on John, one at his waist and one in his hair, holding him close, “Of course _you_ have been kissed. You’re beautiful.” 

John jerked out of Pellinore’s grasp and crossed his arms, “Don’t call me that.” 

Pellinore, looking perplexed and still a little punch drunk, said, “But you are beautiful, John.” 

“I _know_ ,” John said, glowering at the floor, “I have been told.” 

Pellinore tilted his chin up with his fingertips, “I’m sorry, John, I did not mean to upset you, I’m afraid that sometimes I’m not good at...communicating.”

In spite of himself John grinned, “You could kiss me again, to make up for it.” 

Pellinore perked up and kissed him, slower this time. John was on his tiptoes to kiss him back. He tugged Pellinore down instead. When he was released Pellinore’s look of punchdrunkenness had been renewed, he was smiling lazily at John, appearing to be entirely besotted. John couldn’t help but return the smile. 

Pellinore’s smile was interrupted by a gargantuan yawn that he tried and failed to stifle. 

John felt a swoop of disappointment, but Pellinore really did look terrible, there were dark purple circles under his eyes and he was blinking hazily. “Have you not slept this week?” He teased.

Pellinore glowered, “Not for a few days...sometimes I can’t…” He colored at this admission. 

“You can’t?” 

Pellinore shrugged, “My brain just...teems. It won’t be quiet. But the time can be very productive if I have something to work on.” 

John nearly groaned to think of his frigid closet, “I suppose I ought to go and allow you at least to try to find some sleep.” He took a step toward the door, hoping Pellinore would call him back. 

He was not disappointed, Pellinore’s arm shot out and took him by the elbow. He released him almost immediately, but John stopped and turned back. 

“You could… stay, if you wished. I don’t mean to… only that your quarters are quite cold and… If you wanted you could sleep here again.” 

“Yes,” John said, looking up at him through his lashes, “I would like that. Though perhaps this time I will go and get my night things.” 

Pellinore nodded brightly and John briefly disappeared and came back in night clothes. When Pellinore was also so changed they, a little awkwardly, crawled into Pellinore’s warm bed. 

With no trace of shyness John laid his head against Pellinore’s shoulder, then looked up at him, “I hope you don’t mind.” 

“N-no,” Pellinore stammered, stiffly putting his arm around John, “I don’t.” 

Pellinore’s body verily radiated heat and John happily snuggled against it. By degrees Pellinore became less stiff. By the time John was tipping over into sleep Pellinore was tentatively touching his hair. His fingers stilled and John pouted, “Keep going with that.” 

“You like it?” 

John turned his head up and kissed Pellinore under the jaw, regretting this immediately when Pellinore returned to uncomfortable stiffness. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Pellinore, your lips are just too far away.” 

“I was only startled,” Pellinore defended, “You may do it again, if you wish.” 

John tipped his head back again and kissed Pellinore beneath the chin again, then a third time. 

In a besotted voice Pellinore said, “I...find I very much enjoy being kissed.” 

“Do you?” John said, “Then you wouldn’t object if I were to continue?” 

Pellinore only made a contented humming noise. 

John lifted himself up on his elbow and, a joyous buzzing in his stomach, began peppering kisses across Pellinore’s face and neck, each of them chaste and playful. Pellinore laughed, nearly giggled, and rolled John onto his back, returning his affection. Happily Pellinore nuzzled his hair and kissed his skin, his hands seeking out John’s to hold. 

Wonderful lurches of emotion were roiling in John’s chest and he laughed aloud which renewed Pellinore’s laughing. Very soon the two of them were playfully wrestling each other under the blankets, giggling and covering each other with kisses. 

Finally they were so tangled in the blankets that they were forced to stop, both of them breathing hard and still laughing. 

Pellinore pulled the quilts free and tossed them back over the two of them properly, then pulled John against him, his much longer body curling around John’s petite one. 

He buried his face into John’s soft hair, “You, John, are extraordinary.” 

Almost desperately, John pulled Pellinore tighter around him. Pellinore pressed his lips against the back of John’s neck and John wanted, more than he had ever wanted anything, to stay right where he was. 

John was awoken while it was still dark out by the flickering on of the the lamp at Pellinore’s desk. Groggily and still half asleep, he shifted over to find Pellinore and found only empty bed. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. 

“Pellinore? What time is it?” 

Pellinore looked over at him from his desk, eyes no less shadowed than they had been a few hours before, “I don’t know, four or five in the morning.” 

“Why are you awake?” 

“I never slept. You were...quite comfortable, but I got bored just laying there. You ought to rest though. Go back to sleep, John.”

“You must be exhausted.” 

“Well, yes. But that isn’t the problem. Let me work.” 

John rubbed his eyes. He had gotten very bad sleep on the drafty and uncomfortable floor of the farmhouse and he was tired to the bone. “C’mere,” he slurred. 

Pellinore looked up at him, ready to argue, but John gave him his best sorrowful look, biting his lower lip, his cheeks pink from sleep and Pellinore gave in. He got up from his desk and came back to bed. 

“Just…” John stifled a yawn, “Just lay down for awhile.” 

Softly, pulling John back into an embrace he murmured, “Brilliant, Mr. Kearns, I had never formulated that idea before.” 

John smacked him lightly, “Only trying to help.” 

“I know, John.”

“Is there anything that _would_ help?” John asked, fighting sleep. 

Shyly Pellinore asked, “Read to me?” 

John laughed softly, “Can’t you read yourself?” 

“Yes,” Pellinore teasingly repeating John from earlier, “But I want you to read it.” 

“You left the lamp burning anyway,” John got up, shivering at how chilly it had gotten with the fire out and retrieved the lamp and the book they had started earlier. He settled back into bed with Pellinore’s head on his lap. 

He flipped through a few pages then started in, toying with Pellinore’s hair. 

“We’ve already read this.” 

“You’ve already read this,” John corrected, “I was sleeping.” 

“Go to my page marker.” 

“I shall not, I shall start where I fell asleep and not a page later.” 

“Then,” yawned Pellinore, “When we read it again, I shall begin exactly where I fall asleep tonight.” 

“Hmm, seems fair,” John said, “Now hush, I’m reading.” 

Eventually, after a very long time reading, Pellinore seemed to be asleep. John very carefully blew out the lamp and set the book on the nightstand then slid down to lay by Pellinore and was asleep almost instantly. 

John spent nearly all of the holiday break with Pellinore, For the first time in his life, Pellinore did not finish a single book during his holiday from schoolwork. Instead he composed poetry while lying with John in front of the fire and in the bed. Or they read to each other, both novels and poems. 

To John it felt more akin to a dream than the life he had grown accustomed to. So much so that a knot of uncertainty began to twist in his stomach. Unwelcomed came the fear that he would open his eyes and Pellinore would be gone. Tall and handsome and poetic, this boy could not be made of the same foul things the other inhabitants of the earth were. Certainly could not long deign to call himself John’s. 

On the final night before Pellinore would have to leave his lackadaisical winter holiday and return to classes, John curled up with him as he had done every night since Christmas. Pellinore had not been able to find it in him either to send John back into his own cold quarters nor waste a night with John sleeping so near but out of reach. And John, equally as enamored of both a warm place to sleep and nuzzling Pellinore, had not volunteered to return to his own room.

John, as he did most nights, found sleep before Pellinore. Usually he and Pellinore awoke slowly in the late morning and had taken to staying in bed for many minutes after they were awake to talk in hushed voices and exchange affections. But tonight it seemed he had only just fallen asleep in Pellinore’s soft, warm bed, his lover’s arms tightly around him that he was wrenched brutally into wakefulness. 

John opened his eyes to gray walls too close, four by four. His shoulder had the ache it had had for three years. He was on his lice infected pallet. Those two books he could both adore and despise. The window with the bars. He screamed. It could not be. He could not be back. Or had he never left? He launched toward the door, slamming his fists upon it, shouting. Shouting for Pellinore. _They_ came instead. Him in the dark coat, her, the nurse with the dark hair, in white. They opened his door. He screamed again. No. Not yet. It hadn’t been long enough. It hadn’t been long enough. He shoved him to his knees, she held his arms. He was seventeen, he should be stronger than them. But the scraps they fed him were not enough. The man in his dark coat pulled John’s head back by the hair, he had a razor to cut it, shearing it to the scalp, leaving scrapes and abrasions. The nurse’s fingers on his cheek.

“John!” 

John twisted around in the dark and there were fingers again on the face. He struck out, his fist connecting and he scrambled away, confused. The bed was soft under him. He was dressed in soft pajamas and not a tattered gray tunic. He hit the wall behind him. He drew his hands to his hair and found it uncut. He tried to control his breath. Tried to still his rampaging heart. 

“ _Don’t touch me_ ,” He screeched, pulling himself into a ball with his hands over his head. 

“I won’t, I won’t, John, I won’t.” 

“ _Pellinore?_ ” he asked desperately. 

Silhouetted in the light of the window through which the first hints of the sun were coming up was Pellinore, drawn away from him, one hand touching his own cheek. 

Several connections were made in John’s brain all at once, “No- Pellinore, I’m sorry!” 

“You-you hit me,” Pellinore said, hand still on his face. 

John scrambled to him, “I’m sorry, Pellinore, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” But as he drew near Pellinore drew away. 

Pellinore got up off the bed, fingers still touching his wounded cheek. He turned his back on John defensively. 

John scrambled after him, “Pellinore? Pellinore, I was- I had a nightmare, I’m sorry, don’t hate me. _Please_.” The terror he already felt was mutating. Pellinore would despise him. Pellinore would make him leave, would never kiss him again. 

Pellinore turned back, he lowered his hand and Jack saw a vicious bruise forming over his cheek.

“Pellinore, I’m sorry.” Desperation clawed the inside of John’s chest.

“You were having a nightmare,” Pellinore said, sounding so reasonable, “I know, you were screaming.” 

“I didn’t mean to hit you.” 

“I know, it’s...alright.” he took a hesitating step toward him and really looked at him for the first time since he’d been struck, “John? You’re shaking. Are you alright?” 

“No!” John gasped, “No, no.” He muttered the word over and over. He couldn’t get his heart to slow down. It had felt so real. He felt himself shaking, felt his breath coming terribly fast. Then, despite the rising bruise and John’s assault, Pellinore’s arms were around him and he was pulled against his chest. 

Pellinore’s hand stroked his hair, “John, you’re alright, shhh, John, don’t be frightened.” 

John could not stop the tears. He sobbed. It was too much. He would have to tell him and then Pellinore would really leave. Or bring him back. His sobbing increased, his terror unabated. Even the chance of being taken back there made his heart speed so fast he became lightheaded. He couldn’t draw in enough air, his lungs only allowed him tiny breaths. 

Pellinore held him tighter still, rocking him gently back and forth. He smelled Pellinore’s shoulder, where his head was resting. He would have to remember his smell. He didn’t want to forget. The flash of life he had adored was gone. This was what real life was: terror and confusion and pain. 

He had to tell him. He had hit him. He hurt him. He looked up, “Pellinore?” He hated how much his voice shook. 

“John?” 

John whispered a hiss, “I was in an asylum.” 

Pellinore drew back, just as John feared he would, “What?” 

“I was in an asylum, Pellinore!” He screeched, “For three years!” 

Pellinore was going to throw him out. He’d tell the landlady and she would put him back on the street. If he slept out there someone would take his fine clothing. They’d take his rifle. He might lose his poem. It was over. It was gone. Pellinore was gone. 

“And you...you were released?” 

“No,” he spat, “No! They would have kept me there forever! I escaped.” 

“John,” Pellinore said softly. He pulled John softly by the hand, back against his chest. 

John sat in shocked stillness, “Didn’t you hear me, Pellinore? I am mad!” 

“You aren’t mad, or if you are, no more mad than me.” 

John clutched him, shaking into his chest, “Pellinore. Pellinore. I want - I want to tell you about it. I want to tell you everything.” He was still shaking and felt weak on his feet. He _did_ want to tell him everything. But he didn’t know the right words for it. 

Pellinore lifted John into his lap, his head resting on his chest. “I want to hear everything.” 

“Your cheek,” John protested. 

“I’m alright, go on, John.” 

John sat in silence for a few minutes with Pellinore stroking his hair, passed his ears now, before he began speaking. 

“I was fourteen when my mother took me there. I lived in a room that was four feet by four feet, I had a pallet to sleep on.”

“My god,” Pellinore interrupted, “That’s inhuman!” 

Miserably John curled up more fiercely, “They cut my hair! It was long, my mother always kept it long, before I got there, passed my shoulders. They said it was beautiful and cut it off.” 

Pellinore pressed his lips against John’s hair, “Why...why did your mother take you to the asylum?” 

John trembled in Pellinore’s arms, he didn’t know how to explain, he didn’t know how to make Pellinore understand. He’d only wanted to be left alone. He didn’t know how to justify the locks and childish traps on his bedroom door, “She said that I was precocious.” 

It was obvious Pellinore did not know what to make of this. So he changed his line of questioning, “What was it like?” 

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, John, of course.” 

“I only ever had two visitors. The doctor, Dr. Adams. He knew _everything_ that happened in the asylum. And the Nurse Isabel. Once a month they took us outside, other than that I sat in my room.”

John was relaxing as it became clear that Pellinore was not going to throw him out of a window. He curled himself more comfortably in Pellinore’s lap, clutching his pajamas. His heart still thundered but he could breath again. If Pellinore would just _understand_.

“No wonder you escaped.” 

“Do you want to know how?” There was only so much of this John could take. He shifted from the harrowing recollections of those terrible three years to the high flown adventure of his escape. He smiled, trying to make this a story.

“Yes,” Pellinore said, turning his head and kissing John’s hair again, “I’m sure it was something enterprising and clever and brilliant and quick witted.” 

“A few of those were synonyms.” 

“It’s six o’clock in the morning and I was only just punched in the head.” 

John kissed him, he was forcing himself to be less distraught, his heart was calming and Pellinore was _still here_. “Alright, so there I was, locked away and forgotten in my tiny cell. With only two books to keep me company.”

“Which books?” 

“Gray’s Anatomy and a book of Baudelaire.” 

“Ah, that’s why you had that one memorized.” 

“I have everything from that book memorized.” 

“I’ll bet you’re quite good with anatomy as well.” 

“Oh...yes, I happen to be very good.”

“Carry on,” Pellinore said, obviously happy that John was less distraught. 

“A moment,” he said. John got out of bed and slunk out of the room. He came back with his bottle of cream that he kept cold on his windowsill. He wrapped a towel around it and pressed it to Pellinore’s bruised cheek, “there, now I’ll continue.” He crawled back into bed and Pellinore held the cool bottle to his bruise. 

“So there I was,” he picked up, “I had been there for three years-”

“Wait,” Pellinore interrupted again, “You said you were brought there at fourteen and there for three years, how old are you now?” 

John answered very slowly, “Seventeen.” 

Pellinore’s tone dropped low, “How long have you been out?” 

John hesitated, “Since early September.” 

“September? But that is so- so recent. My god, John.” He set the cream bottle on the nightstand and loomed over John, kissing him with tenderness that made John desperate. 

“Do you want the story or not?” John teased. 

“Yes, I do,” Pellinore said, settling back in and taking back up the cream bottle. “When did you get to Cambridge? I didn’t see you until the second half of October.” 

John squirmed, “I- I went to my mother’s house when I got out. I didn’t want to go back but I had nowhere else to go. And I was ill. A few days after my escape my heart raced so fast it hurt and I kept being sick. I could barely get home, my head hurt so badly.” 

“And you mother? She didn’t send you back?” 

“No...no...she pretended I had only been away. She took care of me until my sickness broke. Then she,” he cleared his throat, trying to get the tightness out of it, “She thought she could just...go back to how things had been before…”

“And you left?” 

“No...not at first. She fell.” 

“My god, is she alright?” 

“No, she isn’t.”

“I’m sorry, John. I know she...sent you away, but I’m sorry. I know it is...very difficult to lose your mother.” 

“I’m sorry too,” John said. He looked up at Pellinore, “Your mother...is she?”

“Yes,” Pellinore said brusquely, “When I was a child.” 

“I’m sorry, Pellinore.” 

“Carry on with your story...please.” 

“Alright, so there I was, three years in and becoming convinced that they never intended to release me. They called it immoral to send me onto the streets. Immoral.” It overcame him. His voice rose again and he felt his heart start accelerating once more. “I don’t understand!” He cried out, “What does that mean, Pellinore? Immoral? I have been told and been told and been told what constitutes morality but that isn’t true! People can just take and take. Pellinore.” 

Pellinore held him, kissing his hair. 

“Shh, I’m here, John.” 

John lay in huffy silence for a few minutes, forcing his lungs to take in large breaths, then restarted, “So there I was, finally seeing that if I ever wished to leave my little cell I would have to bring it about on my own. The usual things occurred to me first, climbing out the window, things like that. But I was on the third floor of an old converted manor house and the window was barred. I’d have broken my legs if I’d tried to jump. So I determined to go at night, when the doctor wasn’t there, he knew everything that happened in there. They had hired a young nurse, Isabel to tend to us, she was a pretty little thing, a little older than me.” 

“She was pretty?” 

“Quite.” 

“Well, continue then,” Pellinore said with a hint of an edge in his voice. 

John flinched. He didn’t understand. “So this nurse, Isabel, she was responsible for our care. Mine at least, there were three nurses I think, but only she came to me. She brought me food once a day, forced different medicines Dr. Adams wanted me to take down my throat. The medicines made me so tired. I could barely rouse myself.”

“What did she look like?” 

“Small, shorter than me by a few inches, quite slender.” 

“I mean her hair and her eyes.” 

“Oh, dark hair, she kept it tied back in a braid, her eyes were dark too, big and dark. Anyway, she pushed this little cart with her to bring all the food around and atop it was a little medical case. She slid the food in through a slat in the door. It took me so long to figure out the medicine was in the food. Opium, I think.” 

“Little wonder you couldn’t rouse yourself.” 

After I’d eaten, at about eight or nine in the evening she would come back and come into my cell for an inspection. A medical inspection or so they called it.” He waited for Pellinore who waited for him. 

“So on the night in September I scraped my food underneath my pallet and put the plate where I was supposed to, then I laid down just as she had found me hundreds of times before. ‘Johnny?’ she said, through the door, ‘Johnny, did you eat your supper?’ Well I didn’t answer just as usual and she came in.”

“Which, of course, is what you wanted,” Pellinore said. 

“Yes, I waited until she was close and I leapt upon her.” 

“My god, John, I hope you didn’t hurt her, she was only a nurse.” 

John tried not to stiffen as anger jolted through his blood, “Fret not, Pellinore,” he said in a far too cheery voice, “she is probably even now regaling her family with the tale of the lunatic boy. I only knocked her down. Then I rushed to her medical bag for a scalpel. That was the key to the whole thing, you see. I hauled her back to her feet and held the scalpel to her throat. I told her she was to keep quiet and to take me to the stables. She did, for what other course of action did she have? I gagged her with a scrap of her skirt in the stable and tied her to a post. Then I took the horse she’d come in on and fled.” 

“...It took you three years to come up with that plan?” Pellinore asked, but he was smiling. 

John swatted him, “You should be telling me how brave and resourceful I was!” 

“John Kearns, you are so brave to bully an impressionable young girl! And to tackle her as you did and hold her and knife point, could anyone else do the same?” 

John laughed and kissed him. He thought he ought to still feel angry but he liked this. Liked Pellinore making light of it. Then he could make light of it. It was almost nothing. He’d only been in an asylum. And what a silly escapade escaping had been.

“No, only I, the great John Kearns!” 

Pellinore laughed and kissed him, “Only my John,” he blushed deeply, “I’m sorry, that was forward, I ought not have-”

John beamed, “Don’t be sorry, I quite like it. Your John. Does that make you my Pellinore?” 

Pellinore smiled and nodded. 

“Pellinore, do you truly not think I’m mad?” 

Pellinore lay back down and pulled John against him, “I have seen a great many terrible things, John. You are not one of them.” 

John huddled against him. It was enough that Pellinore did not throw him out, he didn’t have to understand. Enough that he wanted him here. When Pellinore had called him ‘his John,’ he had been lost. 

When he fell back asleep, he dreamed only of Pellinore.

In the morning, not rested in any sense of the word, Pellinore washed and readied himself for his first day of class. 

“I have to go, John, will you be here when I return?” 

“Sadly, no,” John said, finishing his breakfast, no hint of his trauma the night before on his countenance, “I have another engagement, it might be a few days, I thought you would be quite busy with the launch of your semester anyway.” 

“More hunting?” Pellinore asked quietly.

“Yes, I find it quite amusing.”

“Rats?” 

“Something like that.” 

Pellinore turned back to him, “How many days?” 

John shrugged, “Not sure, three? ten? I really don’t know.” 

“Fine,” Pellinore said shortly, “...you will try to be safe won’t you?”

John pulled him down to kiss him before he left, “Well I won’t try to get myself killed if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Just...come back to me.” 

John kissed him again, “You don't’ have to worry about me so much, Pellinore, I’m quite good at hunting.”

But Pellinore’s mind would not relent in the parade of vicious creatures he had seen coming through his father’s house or in his father’s books. Any of those could be hiding in the shadows lurking after John. “I’ll miss you, John.” 

John brightened, “I’ll miss you too, Pellinore. Write something for me while I’m away.” 

Then John was out the door and gone, rifle over his shoulder. 

Pellinore carefully locked the door behind him and went to his classes. It was evening by the time he returned. He did already miss John. He had missed him in class. For the first time in his life there was someone he would have liked to whisper comments to, but John could not join him. He’d missed him while he took a lonely lunch at a cafe. And he missed him now, when his room felt too big and too quiet for his absence. But John had been right. He did have much work to do. 

He lit a fire in his grate, made himself some tea and set to work. Late into the night he worked, looking up at every little noise although he knew there was no chance of John being back yet. Finally, too late, he blew out his lamp and curled up in his lonely bed. He had grown quite accustomed to sharing his bed with John and it felt cold without him. He always took so long to get to sleep, he liked spending that time with his arms around John, petting his hair, listening to him breathe. 

It took him more than an hour before finally he slept. When he did it was fitful and filled with nightmares. Mostly of being in his father’s basement again his father tall and bent over his table, scalpel poised. And of John’s sundered body lying pale under it, torn apart. Congealed blood on the edges of his wounds. He slept little, after that, while John was away. 

It was six days, by the end he could hardly keep his head up in class. He could barely read without drifting off but when he did he was beset. Crocota, Chimera, Anthropophagi, Tarasque: he had watched his mind play out John’s death by each of them. Every time John was blindsided, hunting wolves and murdered by a monster. He would look so small and fragile bleeding out in the woods. 

When the knock came at the door Pellinore leapt to it, springing it open, “John!” 

John grinned at him from the doorway, he was dirty and dishevelled, looking quite careworn, “Hello, Pellinore.” 

Pellinore dragged him inside at once, shutting the door and kissing him fiercely. He touched every inch of John’s face, burying his hands into his hair. 

John laughed, “Not that I don’t appreciate the welcome, Pellinore, but are you alright? You look absolutely dreadful.”

“Yes, I’m fine.” He clutched John against him, so happy was he to find John whole and undamaged, “My John.”

“Were you really so worried over me?” John asked, half complimented and half offended, “It was only wolves.”

“And thank god for that.” 

“What does that mean, Pellinore?” John asked with exasperation. “This is England, not the wilds of Africa, what horrible thing could be lurking in the shadows?”

Pellinore wanted to tell him. But he had been sworn to secrecy from the moment he could talk and he could not bring himself to divulge the secret. “I’m...I’m only glad you’re back.” 

John gave in a smiled, “I missed you quite desperately, I’ll have you know.”

“Did you?” 

“Yes, go take a bath and I’ll tell you exactly how much.”

### March, 1873, Cambridge

“I-I wrote you something new,” Pellinore said shyly. Both of them had been lounging in Pellinore’s rooms damp haired and in their pajamas after baths. 

“Did you? Read it to me!” John said leaping up and crossing the room to him. Although Pellinore did not like his wet hair on his skin, he let John nuzzle under his chin as he listened to Pellinore’s latest poem. 

“Did you write it down?” John asked when he was done.

“Of course.” 

“Then give it to me, I’ll put it with the others.” 

“The others? You keep them?” 

John swatted him, “Of course I keep them, as if I could ever stand to get rid of them. I have them in a box in my own room. Except for the first one, I keep that with me. Well, not in my pajamas.” 

Pellinore tugged him back and kissed him again. His eyes lit up mischievously and he began a rain of kisses all over John’s face, neck, and shoulders. This distracted John enough for Pellinore, feeling half foolish and half gleeful, to begin tickling his sides in earnest having been overcome in a fit of affection.

John squealed and giggled, “No! Pellinore! Ah!” His knees buckled under him with his giggling and he clung to Pellinore, pulling both of them onto the floor with a thunk. He was not about to allow Pellinore to inflict such things without repercussions. John squirmed and fought back, tickling Pellinore’s sides. Atop him, Pellinore wriggled and laughed. They battled for minutes before Pellinore slipped his hands into John’s armpits, making him truly shriek. 

Pellinore laughed and put a hand over John’s mouth, “Hush!” he laughed, entirely out of breath. He moved his hand and John made a playfully angry face. 

“Hush you say as though you didn’t start it!” John complained. 

“You’re ticklish,” Pellinore said with a smile. 

“So are you!” John leaned up and kissed him. 

The gleeful smile slipped off of Pellinore’s lips and he stared very seriously down at John. John looked, wide eyed, back at him. Pellinore kissed him. 

John’s hands carded into Pellinore’s still damp hair and his mouth opened under Pellinore’s. 

Pellinore made a small noise, the kiss becoming passionate rather than chaste. Pellinore was encouraged by the tiny hums and gasps of John under him. The feel of John’s lithe body under Pellinore’s was too much and in only a matter of moments Pellinore knew he could be felt through his pajamas. John’s hips pressed upward and Pellinore gasped to feel John as well. It sent fire through his blood. 

He slid his hands up the shirt of John’s pajamas and felt the smooth skin of John’s torso. 

The moment his hands touched his skin something changed. John did not stop gripping his hair and back, nor did his lips still. But Pellinore could feel with his hands and with his chest that rested atop John’s that his heart positively thundered. Certainly Pellinore’s pulse had quickened but John’s raced. John, who had been making pleased little noises, was now entirely silent. 

Pellinore slid his hands free of John’s shirt and pushed himself off, holding himself off of John’s torso. “John?” he asked, “Are you alright?” 

“What?” John asked, his voice hard and high, “Yes. I’m fine. I- come here.” 

“John, you’re shaking.” 

“I am not!” 

Pellinore heaved himself off and sat on the floor. 

“I’m fine, Pellinore,” John argued, but Pellinore could see that his breath had become the tiny gasps it had been when he had been panic stricken over his nightmare.

Pellinore frowned, he didn’t understand what was going on. He didn’t understand why one moment John had been happy and laughing and the next shaking with a thundering heart. “John?” he asked softly. 

Embarrassed John replied, “Pellinore?” 

“Would you mind if we only read tonight? Together I mean.” 

John rolled to his feet and righted his mussed pajama shirt, in a falsely nonchalant voice he said, “Fine, if that’s what you want. But you’re the one reading.” 

Pellinore rose after him, “Of course, make tea, will you?” 

John gave him a small smile and made tea. When he was finished he joined Pellinore on the bed, tucking himself under Pellinore’s arm, handing him his tea. 

Pellinore picked up with the book they had been reading, letting John curl against his side, his breath slow and easy.

### July 1873, Cambridge

“You will be happy to know,” John said, coming into Pellinore’s room, “That I have acquired proper employment.” 

“Have you?” Pellinore said, smiling up from his reading, “What will you be doing?” 

“Assisting a doctor,” John replied, pulling out the ribbon that bound his hair, now fashionably long and shaking it out, “As it happens, there are not enough wolves terrorizing farmers to adequately employ even one rather bloodthirsty boy.” 

Pellinore laughed, “You’ll like that, it will help when you go on to school. How are you planning on getting into school, by the way? Since you’re a lunatic fugitive.” 

John frowned at him, “By lying.” 

Pellinore raised and eyebrow, “Are you good enough to trick professors?”

John nodded confidently, “Don’t you worry about me, Pellinore.” 

Pellinore got up and crossed the room to him, “Congratulations, John, someday you’ll be the finest doctor the world has ever seen.” 

John beamed at him, “What are you working on? Poetry?” 

“Oh...uh...yes, poetry.” 

John cottoned on to his hesitance and snicked the paper off the desk, “May I read it, then?”

“No!” Pellinore said snatching it back, “No...alright, fine. It’s a letter. A private letter.” 

John sulked, “Private? To whom?”

Pellinore shuffled his feet, “My father, I might not even send it. He won’t write back.” 

John huffed, “So to hell with him.” 

Pellinore colored and snapped, “Don’t say that, John. He’s my father.” 

John shrugged, “I suppose he does pay for your school, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he is only...he is only very preoccupied. His work is very important. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to write to me, only that he doesn’t get the chance.” 

“So what’s he do?” John asked, dropping a couple of pillows onto the ground and laying before the fire in his favorite spot, even if there was no fire going in July. He was not convinced Pellinore was being truthful, but he did understand rather well the intricacies of parental relations. 

“He’s…. he’s a scientist.” 

John hooted, “A scientist, do you have any brothers, Pellinore or is he left with only a poet?” John closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head. 

Pellinore shook, he could feel himself going pale, like a child he stamped his foot and screeched, “Shut up! Shut up!” 

John’s eyes flew open and he looked over at Pellinore shaking and pale, “Oh, hell, Pellinore, come down here, that isn’t how I meant it.” 

“No.” 

“Pellinore, come on, trust me for a moment, come down here. Or are you that mad at me?” 

Relenting but still angry, Pellinore consented to kneel next to him but no more. John sat up and took his hand drawing him down until he lay next to John. Pellinore succumbed without a fight, they had lain like this so many times it seemed the only course to take. 

John did not release Pellinore’s hand, “Pellinore,” he started in a soothing voice, “I love that you are a poet. I would not have you be anything else.” 

“Truly?” 

“If you were a scientist you may have never intrigued me to stay, you may have never written me that poem, nor the scores of them you’ve written me since. I adore that you are a poet to the depths of my heart, cold though it may be.” 

Pellinore’s dark and emotive eyes were scouring every inch of John, as though if he looked hard enough he could see visible marks of deceit or empty platitudes. “John,” he started very seriously, looking into his eyes, “I love you, John.” 

John sat up to stare at him, “You love me?” Pellinore watched him swallow. 

Pellinore stiffened and curled his shoulders down when John failed to continue, reading into his silence, “It’s alright...if my… emotions are not reciprocated. I don’t want to put you in a position-”

“Pellinore,” John cut him off, then lost his nerve and only nodded, “I’ve - I’ve never.” He drew several short and shallow breaths, “I love you, Pellinore.” 

It was unclear which one of them moved first but then they were kissing, their hands in each other’s hair. Pellinore tilted his head and kissed him more ardently, their tongues tentatively dancing around each other. John pulled himself closer and he let his hands rove Pellinore’s torso. Pellinore felt so easily ignited, as though John’s fingers were electrical. They crept up beneath his shirt and he gasped into John’s mouth. 

Pellinore listened attentively for the speeding of John’s heart or trembling in his fingers, but John seemed sure of himself and excited. 

More even than he wanted John’s exploration of him to continue, he wanted to reciprocate. To find those spots on John, like where John’s fingers were now, right at his sides, that made his skin burn and his stomach seize. He mimicked John, slipping his long fingers underneath John’s shirt. It was harder for him, John’s clothing was much more well fitted than his own was, his vest especially was very tight. He switched tacts, working at the buttons of the vest. Since John’s fit of panic before he been particularly attentive to shifting in John’s moods during exchanges of affections. He had been slow and tentative. 

“Careful,” John chided, “These were quite expensive. But-” he took a long breath, “I can...I can take it off if you’d like.” 

Pellinore slowly ran his tongue over his lips, thinking, then he nodded. 

A small blush crept over John’s cheeks, “You too, then.” 

Nervously Pellinore unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide off of his shoulders. He felt all of a sudden unappealingly pale and gawky. Especially with John before him who revealed that his unclothed torso was just as beautiful as the rest of him. Softly muscled with no hair at all. 

Pellinore reached out reverently and paused right before his fingers made contact, “Is this alright, John?” He had been thinking about this a lot. Had determined that John, who like springing things on other people but did not relish being surprised himself, might like to be openly asked. 

“Yes,” John breathed.

Pellinore ran the fingers of one hand down John’s stomach. John shivered under his touch. He shifted forward and touch his shoulder with utmost gentleness, pressing him back and down until John lay upon the rug. 

Pellinore bent over him, exploring the newly exposed skin with abject wonder. John shifted and sighed under the ministrations. Pellinore bit his lip hesitantly then moved, stradling John for a more convenient angle. John’s eyes leapt open. 

“I can move,” Pellinore offered, his fingers going still. 

“Don’t. C’mere,” he drew Pellinore down and kissed him again. Experimentally Pellinore kissed down the side of John’s throat, on instinct opening his lips to taste his skin. Under him John groaned. 

The noise seemed to go right through him and he felt himself hardening in his trousers. Surely John could feel it too, just as he could feel John. He would have thought it would be embarrassing, but the feel of John only made his blood pound. 

Desperate to coax John to make that noise again he lingered over the soft skin. Hesitating, ready to stop at a moment’s discomfort from John, he bit very lightly, only a press of the teeth. 

John’s lips parted and he moaned, “Pellinore,” he murmured, “Do that again.” 

Pellinore did not delay but sucked the tender flesh of his neck against his teeth, the taste of it and the sounds John was making turning his head. All the while, Pellinore’s hands touched every inch of John he could reach. John had begun to tremble, gasping groans huffing from between his lips. 

John’s enthusiasm drove Pellinore’s confidence and he gave in to the impulse he had been fighting since he had straddled him. He pressed his hips down, searching for friction. 

John bared his neck, dropping his head back and calling out. Pellinore did it again, rubbing himself against John, groaning himself at the feeling. 

“Pellinore,” John gasped, “Pellinore. Say it again.” 

Pellinore did not have to ask what, he brushed hair away from John’s ear and kissed the patch of skin behind it, “I love you, John.” 

John bucked against him and Pellinore gasped. “Tell me again.” 

Pellinore smiled, moving his hips against John’s, “I love you, John.” 

John’s head fell back against the floor and he laughed, his eyes open and dancing. His laughter was giddy, it sounded lyrical and relieved. He tried to roll his hips then ineffectually pushed on Pellinore. 

“What do you want me to do, John?” 

“Turn over, I know in the novels I flip you over, but you’re a little big.” 

Pellinore laughed and rolled them over, John scrambling up and perching on his hips. He was looking down on Pellinore as though instead of a lanky and pale chest it were a treasure trove. His fingers touched Pellinore delicately, trailing down the thin line of dark hair that led down from his navel. Pellinore shuddered. 

“I don’t think you understand, Pellinore,” he said in barely more than a whisper, as though he were speaking to himself.

“What don’t I understand?” Pellinore asked as John leaned over him, pressing their chests together and kissing his neck. Without meaning to he let out a pathetic little yelp, so much sensation John teased from his skin with his lips and teeth. 

John lifted his hips enough to hesitatingly unbuckle Pellinore’s trousers, he stopped suddenly and looked wildly up at Pellinore for confirmation. Pausing to stare at John, Pellinore nodded. John slid Pellinore’s trousers down and Pellinore rolled them again so they lay side by side. 

“John?” he asked when both of them had kicked off the last of their clothes, John removing his trousers himself, “What - what don’t I understand?” 

But John was distracted, his eyes devoured Pellinore, “My god.” 

“What?” Pellinore asked self consciously, hunching away. 

“You’re just- you’re just- beautiful.” 

“Hey,” Pellinore said, looking at him doe eyed, “You can’t call me that if I can’t call you that.” 

John lifted a hand and tucked a lock of hair behind Pellinore’s ear, “You’re a poet, you should be able to come up with something much more original than- than that.”

“John,” Pellinore murmured, “Were I the finest poet in the breadth of the world-”

“You are,” John interrupted. 

Blushing Pellinore continued, “I couldn’t- I couldn’t find words. You’re too much for something as paltry as poetry. But I’ll try.”

John’s fingers traced his hips, gliding over his thighs. It did not make putting together words any easier. “Is this alright, Pellinore?” 

Pellinore nodded rapidly. 

“John, you-” The tip of John’s finger graced down him and he lost the words in gasping, “ _John_ you are, John.” 

He pulled John closer by the hips and he reached out to give to John what John gave to him. He paused and looked at John, “C-can I?” 

Breathless, John nodded back. 

Pellinore wrapped his long fingers around John and drew his hand up and back down. 

John shuddered and his back arched. “ _Pellinore._ ” 

“John,” Pellinore shuddered.

“Say it again.” 

His breath whining Pellinore did not hesitate, “I love you, John. _God, John._ I love you.” 

John pulled Pellinore closer by the hips until they were nearly pressed together and pushed Pellinore’s hand off of him. He looked into Pellinore’s eyes, nearly black with want and took both of them in hand. John’s eyes were wide and staring into Pellinore’s, his lips slightly parted. He pressed his forehead to Pellinore’s and did not look away. 

Pressed against the hot, hard length of John, his hand around them, Pellinore sobbed, repeating in a flustered mantra his declaration of love, mixed up with John’s own that stumbled in fitful stutters from his lips. 

It took no more than three strokes before they both began shuddering and fell to the little death. John’s mouth was open in a silent scream and Pellinore could not tear his eyes away. Spent and heaving John pulled himself against Pellinore, pressing his head to Pellinore’s chest. 

Pellinore wrapped his arms around him. He felt in the rush of that moment that he wished to be beside John every moment of his life, that any second out of his company would be a second entirely squandered. 

He nuzzled his face into John’s hair, whispering he murmured  
_"Haloed in a golden light,_  
_His lips spilled forth his song,_  
_and though he thought he looked at me,_  
_my soul he looked up...”_

He couldn’t stop himself, he murmured the entire thing, the words having emblazoned themselves so clearly in his mind he thought that he would never forget them. 

“Pellinore,” John whispered, turning his face up to look at him with tender eyes, “My Pellinore. I love you.” 

Pellinore feared his heart would burst, he crushed John to him. His throat was constricting. He laughed and felt half foolish and half giddy as tears slid down the sides of his face. 

John looked up, “Pellinore? Are you crying?” Merely watching him seemed to be enough to pull John down with him and tears dripped from John’s eyes down his nose. 

Both of them smiling, faces still wet with tears, Pellinore dropped his head back and laughed. Then all in a rush he stood, scooping John up with him. With a foolish laugh he tossed John onto the bed where he landed in a heap. Pellinore followed after him but John, laughing as well, pushing him back by the shoulder. 

“Whatever was that for?” 

“The rug is scratchy,” Pellinore said as explanation, “And we have the whole night.” 

As the first rays of the sun rose through the window, John was sprawled, exhausted across the bed. But Pellinore was far from sleep indeed. He felt sturdy and brimming with energy, despite his labors of the past hours. He sprung from the bed and looked out the window. 

With a satisfied grin he pushed his favorite chair over to face his window, “John!” he said with excitement, “Come here, watch the sunrise with me!” 

A tired groan rose from the bed that sounded quite like, ‘Not on your life.’ 

“John, the sunrise!” 

“Pellinore,” he whined, “There will be other sunrises, we were up the whole night. Come here and sleep.”

Unfortunately for John, Pellinore had no interest in sleep and John was small enough for Pellinore to lift with relative ease. Pellinore wrapped a quilt around him and lifted him out of the bed, plunking down on the chair and settling John, captive, on his lap. 

“Keep your eyes open long enough for the sunrise at least, John, for me.” 

As the sun peaked the buildings outside the window it was clear John had not stayed awake. He was curled up on Pellinore, entirely asleep. His own tiredness crashing down on him, Pellinore moved them back to the bed and collapsed into sleep.


	4. Spring 1874

#  **Spring 1874**

### April 23rd, Cambridge

“What do you plan to do when you are finished?” John asked in a soft voice. He lay on the floor, sprawled the opposite way from Pellinore. Their heads were next to each other and each of them had their hands out behind them to toy with the fingers of the other. 

“After I graduate do you mean?” Pellinore asked, “I- well...I had rather thought I would go wherever you wished to attend medical school.”

John turned his head and Pellinore mimicked him so their noses bumped together. They laughed and grinned at each other and rubbed noses.

John smiled, “Will you really? You aren’t returning to America?” 

“My father has instructed me to. He wishes for me to study what he does, but I want to go with you.” 

John tipped up his chin and kissed him, “I want you to come with me.” 

Pellinore’s eyes looked over his face softly, “Where do you want to go? You’re clever enough to get in anywhere, with scholarship probably.” 

“I- I had thought Paris.” 

“You hate the French, and you only barely speak the language, surely you would prefer Oxford.” 

John hesitated, a small blush on his cheeks, “I have been practicing the language, and well...your poet friends all live in Paris, so I thought that if you were to accompany me you would enjoy Paris. And it would not be so bad for your career.”

Pellinore kissed him, “Have you contacted anyone there, for admittance?” 

“Yes,” John answered, “And the doctor I work for has written me a letter. I- well if you wish to come with me next year I have secured a place in Paris.” 

“Yes, of course I will come!” Pellinore said, “You and I can find a flat in Paris together, we can fill it with medical texts and poetry books!” 

“And have Parisian wine with your poet friends.” 

Pellinore grinned, “You know, they are not like the rest of society, we will not have to be so discrete.”

John carded his fingers into Pellinore’s hair and, upside down, kissed him amorously. He smiled, drawing back just enough to speak, “Discrete, is that what we are?” 

“Well we would be,” Pellinore chided, pulling John closer to kiss the available side of his neck, “If you would quit exclaiming so loudly in the middle of the night.” 

“And whose fault is it that I feel so compelled to call out quite so loudly?” 

Pellinore grinned and kissed him again, “I will take the blame for that, gladly.” 

John laughed and flipped onto his stomach, “When I am a doctor, we can see anything we want. You know I’ll be good at it, I’ll have enough money for us both. And I’m sure you’ll have some of your own by then from writing. You won’t need to ask for it from your father, I know you hate that.”

“I haven’t said I hate it.”

John kissed his nose, “You didn’t have to, my dearest Pellinore.” 

“We can travel to every corner of the earth. Just you and I, John,” Pellinore smiled and sighed, “I shall never leave you, John.” 

John’s eyes were gentle and he lifted his hand to play with Pellinore’s hair, “Nor I you, Pellinore.”

### April 24th, Cambridge - Pellinore

“Oh wake up for a moment, Pellinore. I have to go, kiss me.” 

Pellinore covered his head with blankets and murmured, “I’ll kiss you when you come home. S’early.” 

“Just wake a little, please. Would you make me wait so long to taste your lips again?” 

Pellinore groaned, “Not so long. I’m sleeping, John.” 

“Well it shall indeed be quite late. The doctor has a visitor coming and I am apparently to play valet. So I shan’t be back until well after ten.” 

Pellinore let himself be roused enough for a swift parting kiss, then fell back into sleep. 

It was late morning by the time he woke up properly. He stretched and sat up, rubbing his hand through his hair. He staggered out of bed and got himself ready haphazardly. Still sleepy, and rather sore from the night before, he wrestled his books and papers into his bag and left to attend a lecture. 

He went to lunch at his regular spot. He came so often he felt as though the table on the end of the veranda were _his_. Sometimes if John’s doctor allowed him a noontime break, John would join him here for lunches. As his doctor liked his own noontime breaks, this was a regular occurrence and Pellinore was a little disappointed when John did not show up. To Pellinore’s recollection he had never missed a Friday, a day when John’s doctor was particularly apt to take it easy. He got up with only a few minutes to spare, having waited as long as he possibly could, and hurried off to his afternoon lecture. 

It was a Friday so he always returned to his apartment quite late after all of his scholastic responsibilities. John was usually home when he got there and again he was disappointed when he was met with an empty apartment. But then, John had said he might be late. 

Pellinore, coming up with what he took to be a wonderful plan, set down his bag and left the apartment again. There was quite a good little restaurant that they rather liked none too far away. If John got back as late has he had said that he might, it would be closed by the time he had returned but if Pellinore got him dinner it would still be quite good a bit cold. 

His feet scraped on the cobblestone on the way, the air still holding a little winter chill as the evening closed in. He scurried through the restaurant door, scraping the mud from his shoes before walking in properly. He scowled. The proprietor, the only employee of the small business, was busy with a large group. He felt like leaving, he didn’t even have John with him to banter with while he waited. But he had come all this way. He could wait he supposed. Finally, after an unreasonably long time the proprietor, Mrs. Lewis, came to meet him. 

“Just you, dear?” She asked, giving him a motherly smile, “Where is John tonight? I hardly knew one of you could go about without the other.”

Pellinore smiled a little uncomfortably, “He is only working late, ma’am. I thought that I would bring something for him.”

“His favorite then? And yours too I presume. Nice lad you are, bringing dinner for your friend. Not so savage in America as all that, or have the British rubbed off on you?” 

Pellinore shoved his hands into his coat pockets and looked at the floor, “He is a terror if he hasn’t eaten.” 

She laughed, “John? I shan’t believe it. A right angel, he is.” She bustled off and, a few minutes later, came back with food packaged up, “Here you are, dearie, and mind you say hello to John for me. I’ve packed you in some scones, I know how you like them.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Pellinore said sincerely, handing over some coins. He shuffled out, digging out a scone before he was home to munch on while he walked. John would have to eat alone, the food smelled far too good for Pellinore to wait. 

Regardless of the smell Pellinore did _attempt_ to wait for John, much preferring to eat with him than alone. But when ten o’clock came and went, Pellinore forsook him and ate the cold food alone, finishing all six of the scones. 

He took out his classwork and set to it. He was far more able to concentrate when left alone, as much as he enjoyed John’s company. He may as well take advantage of his time alone if he was going to be forced to suffer it. So immersed, he hardly noticed the time slipping away. 

When, late in the night, he read an entire page without comprehending a word of it, he closed the book and rose to get ready for bed. Only then did he notice that John had still not returned. He got ready for bed anyway and lay down. Some patient had come in late and held John up. That must have been it. Unusual and disappointing but no cause for alarm. 

Pellinore closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids played a vision of John sundered by some beast in the dark. He jerked them open. 

“That is preposterously unlikely,” he chided himself outloud, “John is fine.” 

But by the time he finally fell asleep, John had still not joined him.

Contrary to his expectations, he woke to an empty bed. He had hoped to wake to John snuggling under his arms, but the bed was cold and lonely. This was very strange. John never left without telling him. Sometimes, it was true, he went on little hunting escapades and didn’t know when he would be back. But he always _told_ Pellinore that he would be going. True worry began to gnaw in Pellinore’s belly. 

He paced about his room until noon when he collected a lunch at the cafe and walked to the office of John’s doctor under the pretense of delivering a probably much needed respite. 

When he got there and tried the door, he found it locked. Of course, it was a Saturday, the doctor had a habit of taking those for himself. Regardless, he knocked upon the window. He called through it, “Dr. Harrison? John?” 

In only a moment the door unlocked and the warmly smiling if a little worse for wear Dr. Harrison stood before him. He didn’t wear his doctor’s coat. He was in rumpled shirtsleeves, glasses pushed up onto his forehead. 

“Well, Pellinore, I didn’t expect you. Whatever are you after? I hope you’re not here to tell me John is ill.” 

“No- no, doctor. I came for John actually. He isn’t here?” 

Harrison looked quite surprised, “No, I sent him home last night. Told him to help a colleague of mine who is in town over to his hotel then to go off home and sleep. He didn’t look well last night, bit pale. Thought he could use a touch of rest.” 

“Oh...he didn’t come home-he is my neighbor you see,” Pellinore amending quickly. 

“Yes, I know,” the doctor said, “I am sure he is alright, you know he can be rather mischievous.” 

“Yes, he can,” Pellinore agreed, but worry gnawed through his belly, “I- I shall- I am going to go. I’m sure- I’m sure he is alright.” And without so much as a parting goodbye, he turned and left. 

Perhaps something had happened to him. Pellinore tried to force his heart to still. Perhaps he had only gotten in so late he didn’t want to wake Pellinore to let him in and had slept in his own bed. That must be it. He would be in his own room. But in his heart Pellinore did not think that that would be true. John had not slept in his own bed since the December before last. 

When he arrived back home he knocked upon John’s door, “John?” He knocked again, “John!” He wiggled the handle, unlocked, the door creaked open. 

Hesitant, Pellinore stepped inside. He closed his eyes and envisioned John curled up on his little bed. Any moment he would chastise Pellinore for interrupting his rest. He opened his eyes. The bed was empty. 

He had only been in this room a handful of times. Uncomfortably short for Pellinore, too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, it had not proved a useful space in which to spend their time. It was really more of a rather large closet in which John could store his growing array of clothing. 

He kept his clothing meticulously, all of it perfectly folded or hung in perfect organization. But now it was rummaged through, shirts and cravats hanging limply out of a few drawers. For once, Pellinore despaired that he always seemed to notice what another may not. For John’s rucksack was missing also and his rifle. 

Pellinore could feel panic welling up under his skin. Where was he? He always told him when he was going hunting. He always told him. Always. What could have been so urgent he would throw clothing into a bag and leave? For the first time he considered the possibility that John had purposefully not told him he was going. Horror flashed in his mind at the thought and he forced it away. John was merely on some small trip. He would be back. 

Pellinore returned to his room and lay upon the bed. John was going to be fine. It had not been so long. Surely he was fine. Surely he was alright. 

Without meaning to he fell asleep. He woke with a horrible start in the middle of the night. 

“The poems!” He called out aloud. He shot out of bed and fumbled in the dark to start the lamp. When it blazed to life he scampered back out of his own door and into John’s room. He kept a box of them. He had said as much, but _where_? Pellinore began tearing the apartment apart in earnest looking for it. 

Not in the wardrobe nor the chest of drawers. Not on the book case or the desk. Finally, the room torn apart around him he found a little box tucked into a drawer of the nightstand. He flung off the lid and found them. There were so many that the box was quite full, crammed in really. John could not have intended to leave for long. He would not leave without these. He had had time to come back for clothing. Surely if he intended to be gone for long he would have taken them. 

_‘Unless,’_ a rather unwelcome voice sounded in his head, _‘He didn’t want them.’_

Pellinore clutched them to his chest and returned to his own room. He threw himself back on the bed, sitting up enough to extinguish the lamp then falling back onto the pillows. He rolled to John’s side and inhaled, smelling the soap he used. It smelled so very like John that he inhaled again, holding the poems to his chest. 

The conclusion of the next week did not see John’s return. Pellinore had managed to attend lectures and complete schoolwork until Wednesday. After that whenever he tried to rise, the poem box he could not help but clutch seemed to sit so heavily atop him that he was unable to move. John wasn’t home. John had packed his bag and John had not come back. He had left the poetry. He had taken his rifle. He had left the poetry. 

On Friday, breaking the absolute, choking silence of the last few days, a single sob broke passed Pellinore’s lips as he lay upon his bed. Then he sat up in a rush and flung the poetry away from him. The box hit the wall and fell open, the poems bursting out and fluttering to the floor in disarray. 

He yelled in dismay and scrambled over the edge of the bed, falling to his knees and gathering them up, trying with shaking hands to put them back. Whining cries were issuing from his mouth. He couldn’t get them into the box. They didn’t fit. He gave up and tossed his head back, hot tears falling down the side of his face. _They wouldn’t go back._

He lay upon the floor and slept, curled pathetically around the unclosed box of poems. He lay there through all of Saturday and Sunday, staring at the poetry without being able to focus his eyes enough to read it. 

On Monday he pulled himself up, leaving the poems where they were. John would come back. John had to come back. He had to. Pellinore could not fathom a world where his John did not come back to him. John always came back. 

He washing himself and went to his lectures. It had only been a single week. No need to be upset yet. But pain was lodged in his heart. Something was wrong. He could not go to the police. John was a fugitive. He would not allow his worry to send John back to that asylum. He needed to be patient. Perhaps he had left a note that had been mislaid. Or thought Pellinore had been awake to hear him say how long he would be away. He had been away longer than this. There was no reason to fret. 

He forced himself through two weeks worth of schoolwork, his anxiety driving him to utmost meticulousness. 

“Most boys in their last few months go easy, but not you Mr. Warthrop, isn’t that right?” One of his professors had said to him. Pellinore had given a tight lipped smile and said nothing. He found it increasingly hard to formulate responses to people when they spoke to him.

But then he had passed it. Three days ago he had passed it. John had never been gone this long. Never. 

It was not with conscious thought that he wandered to the trainstop. He didn’t want to know. But he was unable to stop his own inquiry. He did not want to know, but he needed to. 

“Sir?” He asked of a scruffy attendant, “Sir, I was wondering if I could ask after someone.” 

“Got plenty o’ work, lad.” 

Pellinore’s gaze hardened and he palmed him a rather large note, “I will compensate you, of course.” 

The man’s demeanor changed entirely, “Course you can ask, who you looking for?” 

“It would have been on-” he cleared his throat, “On the night of the twenty fourth of April, late probably.” 

“S’long time ago.” 

Stiffly, Pellinore handed him another note, “A young man, he would have been slight and blonde, well dressed.” 

“Oh- you know, boy, I do remember ‘im. Pretty as a girl he was.”

Pellinore’s heart quickened, “He-he was here, what was he doing?” 

The man shrugged, “Can’t quite seem ta remember.” 

Wanting nothing more than the strangle him, Pellinore payed him further, “Now, tell me. What was he doing here?” 

“It’s a train station, what d’ya think. Boy was stowing onto a car. Only remember cuz he paid me, see. And cuz he didn’t look rough enough to be stowing away on no train car. But there he was.” 

Hardly able to force the words passed his lips Pellinore asked, “And where was that train going? Do you know?” 

“Course, I know, that was why he paid me, see. He looked for me. Wanted to know which train would take him to France.” 

Pellinore swayed on his feet. He near to collapsed. He felt as though rather than standing beside a train he had been struck by one. He had no more words for the man, only turned and left. 

He was shaking when he got back to his apartment. France. He left. He left. He _left_. He kicked the door shut and fell, rolling onto his back on the floor and crushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Terrible cries erupted out of him, more the sounds of a wounded creature than a man. He couldn’t breathe. John was gone. John had left. 

He scrabbled over and clutched at the poems he had left on the floor. He had left them. He had left them. He had left Pellinore. Pellinore screeched. His muscles spasmed and he leapt to his feet, hot fire in his blood. 

He fell upon the grate and lit a flame, fueling it until it blazed. He leapt upon the abandoned and betrayed poems, grabbing them by the handful. He threw the first of them into the fire and they curled and charred immediately. 

He could not loose it from his mind. His John so many months ago, before he had been his John.

_John, coy and teasing, “You don’t think I could pull one over you?”_

_“No.” He had said brusquely._

_John had winked, “I bet I could.”_

Had it all been a trick? Had he been duped? John who had lied his way into a doctor’s office and free housing. Had he merely toyed with him for a warm place to sleep, and an inviting bed to sleep in. Pellinore cried, his breath whining. He felt used and foul. He had bared so much of himself to John. And John had left. 

Handful after handful he threw the poems. There were so many. So many different ways he had emptied his heart for John. And they had been abandoned. John had abandoned them. John had abandoned him. His teeth were bared and he breathed hard through them, small sobs and whines rising with every exhalation. 

He threw them in until all of them had been devoured. Then he collapsed on the floor. Muffled into his hands, he screamed.

### April 24th, Cambridge - John

“Oh wake up for a moment, Pellinore. I have to go, kiss me.” 

Pellinore covered his head with blankets and murmured, “I’ll kiss you when you come home. S’early.” 

“Just wake a little, please. Would you make me wait so long to taste your lips again?” 

Pellinore groaned, “Not so long. I’m sleeping, John.” 

“Well it shall indeed be quite late. The doctor has a visitor coming and I am apparently to play valet. So I shan’t be back until well after ten.” 

John was hardly satisfied with the barest graze of kisses he got, but then he had kept Pellinore awake quite late. He dropped another kiss on his forehead, “I love you, Pellinore.” But Pellinore did not reciprocate the sentiment, having already fallen back asleep. 

John smiled and slipped out the door. He did not much relish acting a servant to the doctor’s visitor, but he had written him a letter that had gotten him into school, how could he say no? So rather than his usual easy Friday when he could take the noon hour for lunch with Pellinore, it was to be a rather long and tedious day. 

“Good morning, John!” Dr. Harrison said the moment he entered, “Quick now, I’ll need you to clean up the office, mind you dust now.”

“Good morning, sir,” he said silkily, “right away. When is your colleague arriving?” 

“Oh he won’t be in until later this afternoon, but we ought to prepare for him, don’t you think?” 

“Of course, sir,” he said, begrudging being given the work of a maid. 

With a dust rag in hand he mournfully watched the noon hour come and go and finally had to admit that even if he had waited until the last minute Pellinore would have gone to class. Perhaps he would be allowed to leave in time to stop by their favorite restaurant before it closed and bring something home. Pellinore loved the scones they made. 

He was kept cleaning and tidying until late afternoon when there was a knock at the door and Dr. Harrison popped out of his office, “Here he is, John, my boy, put down that rag and get the door!” 

John put down his cleaning supplies and opened the door. Ready to greet the yet unnamed visiting doctor. 

All motion in his body felt as though it stopped. As though his heart ceased to pump and his blood ceased to move. Illuminated in the light of the office was the lean countenance John had spent three long and terrible years looking at, the asylum alienist Dr. Adams. 

“Gregory!” Adams said, stepping passed John with hardly a glance and shaking the proffered hand of Dr. Harrison, “It has been far too long.” 

“So it has, old boy, so it has,” Harrison said, smiling. “Journey wasn’t too long, I hope.” 

“Not at all, not at all. Who is this blinking at me from the doorway then? Have you taken an apprentice?” 

“I have as it happens, I call him Little John, though I daresay John will suffice. He’s off the Paris in the autumn to study properly.” 

Adams clapped John on the shoulder making his body stiffen, “You must be a clever boy.” 

Forgetting any sort of appropriate response John said, “Yes, sir.” 

Both of the men laughed and Adams said, peering at him through his spectacles, “Who is your father, now, John? You seem blasted familiar.”

John forced a smile on his face, “Mr. Kearns, I expect, sir, but I never did meet him!” 

Both men laughed and for a precious moment he was forgotten as Adams got settled in. John wanted nothing more than to escape back to Pellinore and huddle into his arms. He wanted to curl up with him until Adams left. Abject terror was curdling in his belly. His brain wasn’t working like it should. His thoughts careened in fits and starts. He wanted to go home to Pellinore. He couldn’t do that. He had to act as though there was nothing wrong. Pellinore would be there tonight. He could garner his strength there. He need only wait a few more hours. A few more hours was alright, although if it were any longer John was not sure he would have been able to stand it. 

“John, my boy,” Harrison said, “Fetch us a bit of whiskey, won’t you? The good bottle.”

“Right away, sir,” he said and disappeared gratefully to fetch the men their drinks. He hoped to be able to slink away to a back corner out of sight for most of the night. He only needed to make sure Adams didn’t put together the scruffy boy he had mistreated for three years, the boy upon whom he had allowed such- John cut himself off. He couldn’t do that. He had to be calm. Pellinore would tell him to be calm. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were occupied and set the drinks he had poured down for a moment. 

He slipped his fingers into his breast pocket and drew forth the poem he kept there. The paper was soft with many rereadings, his first poem. He read it, Pellinore’s voice echoing in his mind. It settled his heart. He read it once more and tucked it back into his breast pocket. 

He picked up the drinks and brought them out. 

“Oh, John!” Harrison was saying, “I was just telling Ambrose what a top notch hunter you are, hunt wolves for the country folk, don’t you, John.” 

John handed the their whiskeys, trying to keep his face averted from Adams, “Yes, sir. I’ve got quite the knack for it.” 

“You ought to see the rifle the boy’s got,” Harrison said winking at John as though doing him a favor, “Quite the beauty.” 

“Now, Gregory, you aren’t forgetting that the last time I visited you told me you’d take me quail hunting are you?” 

“Not at all, not at all. I had rather thought we might go today, there is still a bit of light left. I only thought John might come along, you would like that, wouldn’t you, John?” 

John, who would have liked nothing less, only answered, “I would be positively honored, sir.” Under better circumstances he knew that an excuse as to why he could never possibly join them would be ready on his tongue. But he could barely maintain steady breaths, let alone a lie. 

“Run on home, John, my boy, fetch that rifle of yours. And pack a rucksack while you’re at it. The cabin is a bit far off.” 

“Sir!” He began to protest. He felt he ought to be able to formulate some excuse why he couldn’t possibly go with them, but his brain would not cooperate. “I will...I will be back directly, sir.” 

“That’s a good boy.” 

His throat closing, nearly in tears, he fled, back up the street and the many blocks until he was back home. He wanted to walk home, to make it take longer. But he couldn’t. He picked up his pace to a jog, then began to run. Before long he was pelting home in a dead sprint toward Pellinore. Pellinore would be home. He could take at least a few minutes of respite. Pellinore might even know what to do. 

His heart was bursting to see him but when he flung open the door no one was home. Pellinore’s school bag was there but he was not. 

John’s shoulders sunk. For a moment he could not stop the tears that came when he realized Pellinore was not there. When he got control over himself he wiped them away angrily. He paced around for as long as he could but still Pellinore did not reappear. Anxious he went to his own room, flinging clothes haphazardly into his bag. He picked up his rifle and waited a few more minutes, as long as he possibly could really. Then, dreading every step, returned alone to the doctor’s office. 

“John! Whatever took you so long? It has been nearly two hours!” 

“I’m sorry, sir, but my flat is a bit of a walk.” That was only partially true, he had spent at least forty five minutes waiting for Pellinore. 

“Well it is too late to go off hunting now, but lets look at that rifle shall we?” 

Hating himself for being so servile he handed over his prized rifle to Dr. Adams. 

Adams whistled, “A beauty if I’ve ever seen one! You daddy give you this, boy?” 

“No, sir, I got it for wolf hunting.” 

“Must be good!”

“Yes, sir.” 

Adams handed it back and looked at him queerly, “You do really seem so familiar, John.” 

“Very odd, Dr. Adams, I am sure I have never had the pleasure of your acquaintance before.” He stumbled over the words, awkward and still frightened. 

He had thought he’d grown up since then. But under Dr. Adams’ stare he felt every inch the fourteen year old he had been when first he came under his care.

It would only take Adams remembering for all this to be over. To be manhandled back to the asylum. There would be no escaping a second time. It would all be over. He allowed himself a moment’s fantasy that Pellinore would surely save him. Were the situations reversed he would never allow Pellinore to waste away in an asylum. 

Anger slid viciously into his blood and he very nearly irrationally struck Adams. The thought alone of the things he suffered being visited upon Pellinore made him seize up in wrath. 

It was clear the men had gotten rather deep into the whiskey in his absence and it was lucky that they had allowed the time for hunting to slip from their grasps. John was only thankful that it seemed he would not be spending the night in a cabin with Dr. Adams. 

For many hours he was again forgotten about and allowed to slink into the shadows to count the minutes until he would be released to Pellinore. He ought to have left a note. He spent the time clutching his poem in his hand, trying to regulate his gasping, frightened breathing. 

Finally, at long past midnight the men stood up, a little shaky on their feet. 

“Be a good boy, John, and see Dr. Adams to his hotel, won’t you?” Dr. Harrison instructed, “Then go off to bed and mind you stay home tomorrow. I dare say I’ve kept a growing boy like you up too late.” 

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” he said, grateful indeed, and overjoyed that so soon he would be in Pellinore’s arms, relaying the terror of facing the doctor from the asylum. 

He hailed a hansom for them and packed Adams’ back into it, climbing in himself after Adams. The ten minutes it took to reach the hotel were nearly unbearable. John’s heart hammered, his breath was shallow and gasping, try as he might to keep it steady. He clutched his rifle in his hands. A few more minutes. Then he would go home. Everything would be alright when he went home to Pellinore. 

When the stopped he leapt out immediately, his own rucksack on his back, holding his rifle in one hand and Adams’ bag in the other.

“Carry that up for me, won’t you?” Adams said, not looking at him. 

Swearing very quietly John carried the bag up to his room. 

Adams took the bag from him when he’d stepped into the room, “Goodnight now, John.” Then looked at him one last time. 

It must have been the way he was caught in the light, or the lateness of the hour, but when Adams looked at him his eyes widened. John would have thought it comical if it hadn’t bloomed such terror in his heart. 

“Johnny?” 

John scrambled back but Adams lurched out and slammed the door before he could make it through, pinning John against it. 

“Johnny!” He shouted, “You nearly _ruined_ me! Escaping like a madman. We were making progress!” 

John could not move. Abject fear had frozen him over. His ordered his body to run but it would not. 

Adams seized him by the collar, his face growing hot with anger. He slammed John against the door, once, twice. “You menace! What you did to that poor girl!” A third time he slammed him against the heavy wood door. 

John, lurching into motion under the attack snapped his hand up and cracked the butt of his rifle into Adam’s jaw, “Let me go!” 

Adams roared, “You devil spawn, as violent as ever aren’t you? You will go right back where you belong, Johnny.” He released him with one hand to strike him across the face. 

Driven on by terror John slammed the butt of his rife straight on into Adams’ face, all of the strength he could muster behind it. Adams stepped back. 

John did not relent, he pressed forward smashing the butt of the rifle down again and again. Adams toppled and John followed him down, slamming the rifle down with both hands. Three years of anger, shame, and terror bore forward his attack.

Finally, when Adams was no longer struggling, he stopped. He almost cried out to see the faceless gore he had created. 

He hadn’t meant to.

He almost swooned. His heart was going so fast. Blackness was hemming in his vision. He gulped down air and forced himself to stay conscious. 

They’d put him back in that place or worse. It didn’t matter what he’d meant to do. He was a fugitive from an asylum. He wanted Pellinore. He wanted him to tell him it would be alright. But it wouldn’t be. Not unless he did something. 

Dr. Adams was not some poor widow with a mad son. He would be missed. John’s breath was hitching, jerking in tiny bursts. His heart thrummed. 

Alright. Alright. What had to be done? He had to hide the corpse. That would get him a few days. Then. Then. 

His stomach went cold. Then he had to run. This wouldn’t be like last time. Real law would come after him. He would truly be on the run. He had to leave this very night. He would only have to do something with the corpse and tell Pellinore. 

He paused and his heart shuddered. No. He couldn’t tell Pellinore. Everyone knew that he and Pellinore were friends. They would question him. Pellinore whose heart was honest. Could he consign him to risk himself lying to the police or betray John to them? Of course he could not. Nor could he ask him to come with him. Pellinore had a family. Pellinore had school to finish. 

John was not so important that he could ask Pellinore to forsake everything for him with no time to think it over. If there was anything Pellinore could not do, it was make decisions in a crux. Because Pellinore would say yes. If Pellinore had asked him, he would say yes. Pellinore would come with him in the night and lose everything. He could never be a published poet. He would be a fugitive. 

He could sneak back and get his poems at least. His heart shuddered more violently. No. He wasn’t strong enough to get that close and not tell Pellinore. He would have to leave them. Pellinore would take care of them. Pellinore would _know_ he would not have left by choice. He would know. 

He needed to get rid of the body. 

He was lucky Adams was slight, still, he could only just drag the body across the room after many minutes. He strained, his throat burning with hard breathing, shoving his body up and through the window. It was a cheap room, it opened onto the alley. Holding his breath that no one would hear it, he pushed the body through. It fell with a sickening thump two floors down. John dropped down, listening for someone to come and investigate. He waited twenty minutes then sprinted downstairs, rucksack still on his back, picking up his rifle on the way. 

He slipped into the stable by the hotel and stopped dead in his tracks. Of course there was a stable boy. Asleep, but he would not remain so if John began stealing horses. Swearing silently, he rushed back upstairs, thinking that at any moment a scream would announce the discovery of the body. That at any moment his panic would overcome him. He seized the doctor’s abandoned bag and returned to the stable. 

He stalked up to the stable boy and plunged the needle he’d stolen from dead Dr. Adams into his neck, filling his veins with enough tranquilizer to keep him down for hours. 

Satisfied, he attached a cart from the back of the shed onto an old mare and saddled it, leading it into the alley. He dragged the body into the cart and get onto the horse. He’d take the body out of town. There was a river he could dump it in. That would buy him time. 

Panic narrowing his vision he climbed onto the horse and dragged the cart out of town. He was lightheaded with the speed of his heart, sure that he would be chased down by the police at any moment. He never expected to find himself at the little bridge he aimed for, but it was in less than an hour before he was standing on it, alone but for the horse and the body. 

He heaved the body out and dragged it onto the ledge of the bridge. With a grunt of exertion he shoved, pushing it as far as he could over the bridge, nearly going over himself with the effort. The body was still limp and it flopped over the railing without falling over. He leaned out over the ledge, pushing the body over.

The body slid sickeningly over and he, leaning out over the railing, saw his scrap of poem flutter out of his pocket.

“No!” he shouted scrabbling for it. He made a few grabs but it was out of his reach, spiraling into the water beneath that still rippled and splashed from the body that could not longer be seen. 

“No. No. No. No. No.” He said, leaning so far over he nearly fell, “No, not that. Not my poem! Pellinore!” 

He forced himself back. There was nothing to be done. It was gone. He had to go. He sat on the bridge. His knees had caved in under him. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave Pellinore. He couldn’t run with not even his poem. He couldn’t do it. He dropped his head into his hands. He had to do it. It wasn’t something he could or couldn’t do. It was just something to be done. He staggered back up.

He brought the horse and car back. He meticulously put them back exactly where he had found them. One last time he snuck back into the hotel room and cleaned the blood off the floor. He still had the doctor’s bag. Time. He needed time. He found Adams’ stationary. He knew what his hand looked like. He had seen it enough. He forced his fingers not to shake and composed a note to Harrison lamenting than at emergency had taken him back home. Then he slunk into the dark to Harrison’s office, slipping it silently under the door. 

Heading left from the office lay the train station. Heading right his flat and Pellinore. He yearned to go right, to run home and throw himself into Pellinore’s arms. He longed to kiss him and be kissed. But he needed to go, and Pellinore needed to be left behind. He couldn’t do that to Pellinore. He would not drag him into the depths alongside him. He turned left and fled to the train station. 

It was only at the train station he allowed himself to leave Pellinore a message. He asked a conductor about a train to France. He would never go to France without Pellinore, Pellinore would know that. Pellinore would come looking for him. He would hear what train he’d stolen away on and he would know. He would know. 

It was paltry and desperate. But John needed to leave some trace. Every step he took cost him more effort. He could still turn back. He could still go home to Pellinore. He could have one more night. He could have a goodbye. Pellinore would not let him leave alone. He would not have allowed Pellinore to leave alone. Was he wrong then? Should he bring Pellinore with him? 

For a moment he turned back, his heart full of hope. The respite was brief. No. No. He had to let Pellinore go. He loved him. He couldn’t make him a fugitive. 

He flung himself into a train that was moving away from the station. It was an empty cargo car, he crawled to the corner and curled up. The train was pulling away, leaving Cambridge. It picked up speed, rattling away from Pellinore. 

It hurt to leave. Real pain that was hollow in his chest. He could not breathe. His heart burned and pulsed so fast his vision blacked at the edges. He whined. 

He reached into his breast pocket and remembered he had lost it. Sobs wracked his body. Pellinore would understand. Pellinore would know he would never leave. Pellinore would keep the poems safe for him. And maybe if he fled long enough they would stop looking. He could change his name again and find his Pellinore. Pellinore. 

Body jerking in horror and agony, lying alone on the bed of the train car, cold seeping up into his skin, John sobbed.


	5. Summer 1874

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: implications of prostitution  
> tw: implications of rape

# John

#  **Summer 1874**

### April, Train Out of Cambridge

John had never had any intention of taking his train all the way to France. He didn’t like the French and had no interest in going to France alone. It isn’t like he could take his spot at school. He’d only picked France for Pellinore. _Pellinore_. Merely thinking his name sent tremors of pain through his heart. He would know. He would know. 

It took him traveling through the whole night to compose himself. Tear tracks were still on his cheeks and his face still felt hot and puffy, but when the first light of the day was coming over the horizon, he could breathe again. And he was ready to move. It wouldn’t be so bad, he had run before. This time he had a rifle, he had a little money, he had good clothing. Maybe he’d go to London, take out a tiny flat and sweep up shops for money. Surely it would not take so long to know if he could go back or not. All would be well. He would return to Pellinore soon. Maybe he could be back in time for graduation. 

He felt a renewed spike of guilt at the thought of that. Pellinore had said so often how he would enjoy someone coming to one of his graduation ceremonies. John had been thrilled. Pellinore receiving the highest honor of his life and he wanted John there. And he would, almost certainly, fail to be in attendance.

John forced his thoughts back to practicality. He would need his wits about him. He thought he ought to leap off at a pull through station. If they found out what train he’d been on that would at least make it harder to pick out where he’d gotten off. His fingers were frozen through but he clutched his rifle against his chest as he jumped. He hit the ground hard and rolled awkwardly, sprawling to a stop. 

He sat up. His head had struck the ground and his vision spun momentarily. Before he could entirely get his bearings, a shadow came over him, blocking out the morning sun. He jumped at looked up. 

“Well, whadda we have here?” Nearly as tall as Pellinore and twice as burly was a beast of a man. Dirt and grime was settled in every inch of him, his clothing was dark with filth and he grinned down at John with rotten teeth. 

John tried to scramble back and hit someone else’s legs. 

“Oh no you don’t,” the second and equally as grimy man’s wheedly voice cooed. 

The first man bent and put a hand on the barrel of his rifle, “Pretty thing you got there.” He tried to wrench it from John’s grasp.

John shouted and kicked at him. The man slammed his heavy boot down on John’s chest, crushing him to the ground. The breath was knocked out of his lungs and the man behind him kicked his ribs. He tried to roll away and kicks rained down on his back. He lost his grip on his rifle and it was torn out of his hands. Then it was over. With the muzzle of the gun he knew was loaded pressed against his aching back he could do nothing to prevent them taking his rucksack and ripping the pearl buttons and silver fastenings from his clothing. 

Anger and fear were welling in equal measure in his belly. They took everything off of him. The knife he kept in his pocket and all his money. He was left entirely without defenses. 

The taller of the two tilted his head back with the muzzle of his rifle, forcing John to look up at him. He scowled bitterly at the man. 

“Pretty li’l thing, ain’t you?” He said gruffly. 

Frigid horror crept down John’s spine and he tried to scramble backwards. The muzzle of his gun was shoved viciously against his throat making him choke. He stopped. He didn’t want to cry. His throat was closing up. His chest shook in convulsions. 

It was an hour before they allowed him to crawl away, bleeding and aching. He dragged himself under a train car where he huddled in the dark. If the train started moving he’d be killed. But he didn’t care. 

Trying to keep himself quiet, he started to cry. He wanted his poem. He wanted Pellinore. His shoulders shook as he cried, his hand covering his mouth to silence his whining. He just wanted to go home. Pellinore was waiting for him. He had to survive so he could go home to Pellinore. His whines rose and he held his breath to silence them. 

Just as he had always believed, Pellinore was a bay in the storm of the world. As soon as he had left he was returned to torment and pain. He had not even had opium to dull the humiliation. 

He no longer had his rifle, or the money he was going to use to run. He didn’t have the medical instruments he’d stolen off of Adams to use in some medical school. He no longer had anything. He was alright. He was alright. He’d had no money before. This was no different. He’d get to London. London was big enough to hide in. And very far from Adams’ home and from Cambridge. He was alright. 

He’d travel at night, he’d have to. He could still hunt, even without a rifle. He was alright. 

His crying began again in earnest. He was not alright. Of course he was not alright. Nothing was alright. He was not with Pellinore and nothing was alright. 

When it was finally dark he crawled out and fled. He didn’t get on another train, he never wanted to see another train. He’d take the fields and backcountry, it would take longer but he didn’t care. He was just trying to not be found. 

His first three days into the backcountry were graciously less eventful than his first on the trains. He made very poor time, his ribs were definitely broken, and his insides _hurt_. He could only walk for an hour or so at a time before he had to sit and rest. And he was hungry. He still hadn’t found much to eat. 

It was that exact allure that had put him where he found himself now. He held a heavy rock in his hand and was crouching in a small thicket. Outside the thicket were a meandering herd of sheep and he felt very much the wolf, albeit a very scrawny and battered wolf. He had first intended to slaughter one of the sheep, but better prey had wandered in. 

A man, clean for a shepherd but short and a bit pudgy with beady little eyes and no chin to speak of was picking his way through the field. John didn’t care much about the man, but he carried with him a picnic that John could smell from here. 

He might have been wounded, but he had the upper hand, he was expecting a fight. He waited patiently for the man to turn his back. 

Satisfied, John crawled out on his belly, ignoring the fearsome pain of his ribs, moving slow enough that the sheep paid him little mind. 

He lay entirely still just a few feet away as the man, whistling, sat, his back to John. 

John flinched forward to strike, fingers wrapped about his rock, and he found he couldn’t bring himself forward. Was he the same, then, as the men at the train station? Taking what he needed by thuggish strength? He sank into the grass in despair. He couldn’t do this. He might have a family, or a lover back home. Did that matter? Did the quantity someone would be missed determine the value of their life? 

He needed the food. But he could not move to take it. 

“Hello? What’s this?” He heard from above him. 

John let go of the rock and turned to look up. The shepherd was craning around to look at him. John’s muscles felt so weak and hurt, he didn’t know how he ever expected to overcome anyone. 

“You alright there, boy?” 

“No,” John said, letting his head fall back into the grass. He couldn’t attack a random passerby. How could he consign Pellinore to loving someone who was little more than a petulant vagrant. 

“Can you move aright?” 

“Yes,” John said. He sat up. His ribs had renewed their aching and his arms shook with hunger. 

“You get yourself into some trouble?” 

John looked at the grass, “Something like that.” He swayed where he sat. 

The shepherd paused, “Well, come on then, boy, come and have a bite of my lunch, you look half dead.” 

John’s head came up slowly, “Truly?” 

“Sure, you’re barely more than a boy, can’t let you sit there hungry as you are.” 

John nodded and scooted himself closer to the man. 

“You’re banged up pretty bad there,” he said, “You feet are bleeding.” 

“Someone...took my boots.” 

“Well eat up then and we’ll see to all that.” 

Tentatively John took the bread he was being offered, he shoved it into his mouth ravenously. The man let him devour most of the lunch, only picking at a few of the cheeses for himself and cutting up an apple to eat in bits.

“How old are you then, boy? You look all of fifteen.” 

John almost corrected him, but thought maybe the younger he was, the easier the shepherd would be. So he nodded, “Fifteen, yes.” 

He whistled, “Sorry state for a boy.” He patted John on the shoulder, and try as he might to stay still he flinched away. 

“You have a name?” 

John nodded, he couldn’t tell him his name, “Xavier Cory.” His voice didn’t sound like himself, it was soft and shy, he couldn’t make it a sure as he had before. Nor could he stand to look at the shepherd for very long without ducking his head back down. 

The shepherd put out his hand, “Hiram Walker.” 

John shook his hand, flinching at the contact. 

“You look a little rough, Xavier.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Your ribs hurt, you know I know a thing or two about patching people up.” 

John scrambled away, “Leave me alone.” 

“Sit down, Xavier, you’ll hurt your feet even more than you already have. Let me see to those at least, my god, you’re barely more than a boy.” 

John sat very still and let Walker bind up his feet. He had to admit, he knew he wouldn’t have gotten far without boots. He wondered what Walker wanted. He was a beady eyed, shifty little fellow, even if he had given him his lunch. 

“You know, Xavier,” he said slowly, “You might not want to be out and about all alone, there’s been something strange eating my sheep.” 

John pulled his knees up to his chin and looked down, “Has there?” He asked disbelievingly. 

“I’m not kidding, my boy.” 

“I’m not your boy.” John got up, flinched and sat back down. 

“Easy now, Xavier, you’ll hurt yourself,” His tone was infuriatingly patronizing, “You look like you’ve been spit out by wild boar. Look, come on and have a rest back at the house.” 

Even weak as he was, John thought he could probably overpower him, and god sleeping in a real bed sounded nice. Walker might have been sort of annoying but John was not really in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“Fine,” he said, then tacked on, “Thank you.” 

“There’s a good lad,” Walker said, more like if John were an eleven year old than the fifteen Walker thought he was. “Come on, up you get.” 

John hobbled to his feet and followed Walker back up the hill to a little cottage. Inside was tidy enough, although it smelled overpoweringly like turnips. He let Walker settle him in a pallet in the corner. The food was making his sleepy and he wanted to not feel how much his ribs hurt for awhile. 

Against his better judgement, he let himself succumb to sleep. 

He awoke in broad daylight. He sat up, winced and forced himself to his feet. It still hurt to stand on his torn feet, but he limped over to the door. 

Outside he found Walker smoking a pipe on a rocking chair, “Afternoon, Xavier. If you’re looking for the outhouse, it’s back there.” 

John flinched away from him and dragged himself to the outhouse to relieve himself. He felt better. Not good, far from good, but better. 

For three days Walker let him stay, he spent most of the time sleeping. He had the unnerving desired to crawl under the bed, but he resisted as the humiliation of being found there would be too great. By the third day his feet were well enough, at least, that he could walk around without limping even if it still hurt. 

Undoubtedly Walker would have allowed him to stay even longer, in fact, he intended it, as he made clear on the third evening while John at a silent meal. 

“You know, Xavier, you seem a little without a heading.” 

“I’ve got a heading,” John said shortly. 

“I’m only saying, if you want steady meals I can give them to you.” 

“For what?”

“Oh, not so much, just be nice if I had a good strong lad to watch the sheep at night.” 

John smiled at him, Walker mistook it as agreeability, “That’s it? Just watch the sheep at night?” 

Walker gave him a mealy mouthed little grin, “Not so much, I think.” 

“I thought there was some big thing eating your ship, something bigger than a wolf.’ 

Color soaked his already splotchy face, “Well, now I didn’t say that. Only that a few sheep’ve gone missing. 

“Sure,” Jack said.

Walker clapped him on the shoulder, “Why don’t you get your start tonight, boy?” 

“Fine, I’ll need boots.” 

“Of course, of course, you can borrow mine.” 

John smiled at him, “Thank you.” 

Walker suited John up with wool socks and boots, “Shout if anything is amiss.” 

“Of course,” John said, managing to resurrect his feral smile. Walker seemed unnerved. 

John walked out of the cottage but he didn’t head into the pasture, he clambered over the fence and continued on his way to London. He wouldn’t take anything else. He wasn’t a thug. But the boots were the price of using him as bait. Not that anything nefarious was hunting sheep. A wolf probably, a pack of them could go through many sheep. But Walker certainly thought there was. 

He couldn’t stay in the country anyway, he wasn’t far enough from Cambridge, he would stand out too much. 

He had wanted to take money and food. He wanted to ask Pellinore what that meant. Morality seemed to fluctuate. Had the men who had attacked him felt they were within their right? Perhaps they would have died without his money and his rifle. He shuddered. No. They took more than they needed. Would have have been within his right to kill them if he could? But he would not be right to kill the shepherd of that he felt almost sure. 

It was all very different from the condemning finality he had been taught, kneeling in mass with his mother. 

When he’d told Pellinore that everything seemed grey it had been the first time he had vocalized something that went so flagrantly against what he had been taught. It felt like there was something clear to be seen but he could not see it. He wanted Pellinore to listen and tell him what he thought, tell him what the philosophers he’d read about would have thought. He wanted Pellinore. 

Was he right to leave Pellinore behind? Yes. Yes. He thought of the attack at the train station. He shuddered to think of Pellinore beside him, suffering the same. Better heartbroken than that. 

John shuddered again, almost losing his lunch to sickness, Pellinore wouldn’t be heartbroken, he would know. 

All this for a pair of boots. But everything: truth, goodness, morality seemed to slip by the moment.

### June, London

John huddled under the eaves in an alley, somewhat out of the London rain. His shirt was soaked through and he shivered. His ribs still ached. It would be his third week in a row sleeping outside. He couldn’t get on his feet. He could barely concentrate when people were talking to him. Hours could go by and he would be sitting in the same spot as before with hardly a recollection of the time passing. 

He slid down the wall and put his head on his knees. He was so tired all the time. He had to eat. He tried to remember when the last time had been that he’d eaten something. Four days. He needed food. 

He wrenched himself up, swayed, and steadied himself. He’d thought it would have been easier in a place like London. But there were boys here who would do rat hunting and swarms of laborers for seemingly every job. He sat back down. He could hardly stay on his feet. He curled himself up. For a moment he was furious that Pellinore was not beside him. But the fury burnt itself out almost before he could recognize it for what it was. Then he just missed him. 

He knew it would not be good. That there was a reason he had left. But he dreamed of Pellinore coming down the alley and tilting up his chin. He dreamed he would lean down and pick him up into his arms, hold him against his warm chest. John would feel the thumping of his heart.

No one was coming. He had to do this himself. Who decided which people were cared for and which cared for themselves? His mother would have said it was God. But what did that mean? Suffer upon the Earth for the reward above. But his reward was here. On the Earth. What use was God in heaven when Pellinore Warthrop walked in the world? 

He shoved himself to his feet, catching his own fall. He had to move. He had to find something. He was going to live. He would not die in a gutter. Not alone. He would not die alone. 

He tucked his chin low and walked out into the rain. There was a pub that sometimes let him eat if he’d sweep up. He stayed out of the good parts of town where the police patrolled. It meant he wouldn’t be taken in for murder, but also that he was in more danger. He’d already been mugged twice. He was even armed with a little knife now, but that didn’t help with four or five men attacked all at once. It didn’t help when the moment someone came upon him his body gave out under him. 

He turned up an dimly lit street and shuffled along it. Girls called out of windows at passersby. He shivered, he hated hearing them. He sped up. 

A girl whistled and instinctively he turned toward the noise and ran face first into someone quite a bit larger than he was. Quiet, muffled, a voice in his head told him to run. He couldn’t. He didn’t listen fast enough. 

A giant hand flashed out and gripped him by the shoulder before he fell, “Ah, be careful where you step, young man.” 

“Sorry, sir,” He said, looking up at him. 

The man was big in every way, tall and very heavy, barrel chested. The golden chain of a watch stretched halfway across his chest. Upon his head was a tall, black hat. He peered at John appraisingly, “Whatever are you doing down here? Pretty thing like you.” 

John flinched at the term, “Passing through.” He tried to shrug out of his grip but he was held fast. 

“You look half starved, you poor thing. Are you hungry?”

“No,” But he swayed where he stood. Of course he was hungry, his stomach was in knotted agony for want of food. 

“Aren’t you now? Come into my home for a little something to eat.” 

“No,” John said, “Thank you, no.” 

His face twisted sourly, “You would reject my hospitality?” Two other men, one large and muscular, the other younger and more slim came up behind him, blocking any escape. John could see that both of them were armed. 

“Now,” the big man continued, “There’s no reason to be rude. Come on in now, boy.” 

“Yes, sir,” John said, filling with self hatred. There would come a day where it would be them who were scared of him. But not now, now he was scared deep in his belly. 

He followed the man up a short stoop into what once might have been a grand old townhouse. 

He followed the man into a dining room that, like the exterior of the house, would have been elegant and fashionable twenty years ago. He pulled out a chair and, filled with revulsion, John sat. 

“Now, boy-o, what’s your name?” 

John swallowed, “Walker,” he said without thinking, “Martin Walker.” 

“Well, my boy Marty, however did you get in such straits, you seem dead on your feet.” He patted John’s hand and John tried not to flinch. 

The room smelled sickly sweet of cheap perfume. John could hardly concentrate. 

A woman came in, her dress was pulled down to bare her shoulder and her heavily painted face was smeared. “Here you go, Big Sir.” She put down two steaming plates of food. One in front of him and one in front of John. The two thugs lingered by the door. 

“Eat up, Marty,” He said encouragingly. 

John tried to weigh his options. He knew that there were dangers to taking this food. But his sluggish brain couldn’t quite figure them out. A voice, a whisper in his head that sounded very much like Pellinore warned him against it. But he dug in. 

“Good boy,” Big Sir cooed. 

“We’ve had our eye on your for awhile now, Marty,” he said, eating his own food, “Sleeping in the street. Shame it is. Pretty boy like you. It simply won’t do.”

### July, London

_‘You’re alright, John. Come now, open your eyes, you’re alright.’_

_‘Leave me alone, Pellinore, let me die.’_

Pain lanced through his body.

_‘No.’_

John was jerked awake and back to the world. He sat up in the plush bed that he despised and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He felt the dull pain of his body, but every other sort of pain seemed distant, muted.

He pulled himself out of bed. It was still dark. Only an hour or so of rest then. It was too late for anyone else to come. He was safe for now. He changed into proper trousers and tied back his hair. 

He could hear collective crying next door and felt the vestiges of grief in his belly. A girl had tried to run last night. Margaret. By the sounds, she had failed and paid dearly. It had been stupid. Her plan had been stupid. All of their plans were always stupid. But then his plans were always stupid so who was he to judge? 

He was allowed to roam around the house, even if they preferred he stay upstairs. He went down the stairs anyway. 

“Margaret is dead, then?” John asked Eddie, the bigger of the two who acted as muscle for Big Sir, leaning on the bannister that lead upstairs. 

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” He grunted. 

“Oh, it’s nothing at all to me.” He thought perhaps it ought to be _something_ to him. He’d known the girl for more than a month, ate with her every night, helped during the day to keep the house clean. But his heart felt nothing, a gaping pit. 

“Get back upstairs, boy.” 

Stringing the words together was a monumental amount of work, he drew in deep breaths, he had to keep going, “Fine. Only, I know Darwin isn’t around. What’ll you be doing with her body?” 

“No concern of yours.” 

He hadn’t been out of the house since they’d forced him inside in June. He had, at one time, thought that if he could escape an asylum he could escape anywhere. But the asylum didn’t anticipate him trying to escape. They’d had him watched over by hardly more than a girl. Not two well armed and burly men. They didn’t do what he knew they had done to Margaret when someone tried to run. 

John hated himself for the shackles of terror he had allowed upon himself, but that didn’t free him from them. 

John took a few more steps down, risking getting backhanded, “I could help.” 

Eddie did not disappoint, his burly hand cracked across John’s chin and he fell back. 

“Fine, take care of her on your own, not my business,” John said taking a step back up the stairs.

“Wait! You wanna help?” Eddie asked. He rubbed his scruffy chin, “You sure?” 

“I wouldn’t have offered if I weren’t,” John said, “But I’ll need the boots you took.” 

“Look, boy,” he said, “Only cuz this ain’t a one man job and the Big Sir wants it done right quick. Come on.” 

John followed him down the stairs and through the little hallway. He took him into the office. John had received so many warnings against entering the room that he could not bring himself to cross the threshold. 

“Come on, boy!” 

Shaking slightly, he closed his eyes and stepped through. 

Eddie drew a key from his pocket and opened a pine box on the far end of the room. While his back was turned, John took in the rest of the room. A desk by the door, a small safe, the pine box. That was the extent of the contents of the room. 

Eddie turned back and tossed him his boots from the box, “There, mind you, if you run off I’ll kill you. Got it, boy?” 

“Yes, of course,” he said, fear sending tiny jolts down his spine. 

“What’s your name again?” 

John gave the same name he’d given the Big Sir and the girls, “Martin Walker.” 

“Well alright, Marty, let’s get a move on.” 

He followed him to the upper room. Three girls used to sleep here, but the other two had moved down the hall temporarily. The last bed was occupied with what was left of Margaret. 

“Take a good look, Marty, this is what happens if you try to run.” 

John didn’t say anything, but he did take a good look. Her face was purple and distended with bruising. 

“He was just kickin’ her around, didn’t think she’d die so quick.” 

John lifted back her torn shirt and looked at the wounds, “He probably ruptured her kidney.” 

Eddie ruffled his hair, “You talk pretty for a whore.” 

John shuddered, “Well we have work to do, yes?” 

“Yeah, right, take ‘er feet.” 

John lifted her feet and Eddie took the brunt of her weight on her shoulders. They took her downstairs and out the back. A horse waited for them with a carriage. “You know how to drive?” 

“No.” 

“Get in the back then.” 

“Do you mind if I sit up front?” 

“Don’t see what good it’ll do you, but I don’t care.” 

They deposited the body in the back and John swung himself up to the seat beside Eddie. He took up the reins and set them off at a trot. John watched his every move. He realized that he could jump off and run, that his small size might help him get away. But the broken face of Margaret did not relent and his terror kept him rooted to the spot. 

Eddie took them to a desolate edge of the Thames, “Alright boy, get back there, we got work to do.” 

He joined John in the back of the carriage with the body, his body odor combined with the stench of the corpse made the carriage smell foul. 

“Alright, get them bricks and rope, you take that side.” 

“And do what?” John asked. 

“Tie one on her hands and feet, then a we’ll put that big one round ‘er chest. The body takes three or four big ones, s’why I needed you.” 

“Why?” 

“Why what?” 

“Why not just on her hands and feet? That ought to be enough to keep her down.” 

Eddie cuffed him across the ear, “The hands and feet come off when it rots.” 

“Oh. So...what if you just threw a body into the water, what would happen?”

“Amateur stuff, that is,” Eddie said, “It’d float up in a couple days.” 

“Oh,” John said, blush rising on his cheeks. 

“So, tie them bricks, and be quick.” 

John deftly tied them off, “All set.” 

“Alright, now ‘ere,” he handed John a pocket knife, “You try anything you’ll join ‘er. Cut off the clothes.” 

“Why?” 

“You know you ask a lot o’ questions.” 

“I’m precocious,” he said flatly. 

Eddie laughed, “If the body comes up it's all bloated see, but people see a lady and they wanna know who it is. Cut off the lady clothes and a rotted body looks like a rotted body.” 

“Oh, alright.” John cut the clothes off of her. 

Together, heaving, they dragged the body to the street that overlooked the river. Eddie pulled her up over the guardrail and she slipped over, dropping like a stone into the water and sinking fast. John thought he could feel the cold of the water on his skin. 

“Get back in the cab, Marty,” Eddie said, ruffling his hair. 

“No one will miss her, will they?” John asked as they started back. 

“Nah, she’s just a whore.” 

“So am I,” John said. 

Eddie laughed, “You think anybody’d miss you?” 

John thought achingly of Pellinore, “I would like to think so.” 

“I’d like to think I got an old rich uncle what would buy the farm and leave me a fortune, but that don’t make it so.” 

John shrugged, “So...how do you know if it worked?” 

“If what worked?” 

“The body? How do you know if no one found it.” 

“Look in the papers, kid, bout all you can do.”

### August 1872

“You got a paper for me, Eddie?” John asked with a wink. 

“You got a coin for me, Marty?” Eddie asked, returning the wink. 

They exchanged their goods and John flopped back onto his bed. Eddie reclined on the chair that propped open John’s door so he could guard down the hall but still talk. 

John flipped open the paper. He read all of it. His days were dull and his nights hellish, so even the boring stories were a reprieve. But he was looking for mentions of the body of a doctor. There had been something when Eddie had first started bringing him papers. A mention of Dr. Adams being missing. But nothing after that. 

John dragged his eyes through the rest of the paper, looking for a different name. They’d sent a detective out from Scotland Yard to ask around about the disappearance. Detective Cornelius Bagville. If John saw that he had been assigned to something else, he was free. Well, free of his pursuit. He still lived in this hell. 

“So, Marty,” Eddie said interrupting him as he usually did, “Got a good one for ya.” 

“Sure,” John said. Even if he did not feel like talking. 

“Can God make a bigger rock than ‘e can roll?” 

“Of course not,” John answered with surety. 

“Yeah? Why not?” 

“Because there is no God.”

“My mum would box you ‘round the ears for that.” 

John flipped shut his paper, “Are you familiar with Jeremy Bentham?” 

“That a friend o’ yours?” 

John sighed, “No, just a philosopher.” 

“How d’you know philosophy? You ain’t got no books.” 

“No...but I used to. A friend of mine told me about him, quite disparaging he was too, but I rather liked what Bentham had to say.” 

“Yeah, what’s ‘e say? And mind you get to up in it and I’ll clock you.” 

“Well, Bentham believes that morality is concerned with pleasure as opposed to pain. So something you want to do, if it is right or not depends upon the sum of its pleasure and pain. That’s about as simple as I can make it.” 

“‘N your friend didn’t like that?” 

“No, he did not, he said it was corrupt, self revolved, and short sighted.” 

“What’s this friend of yours named?” 

“None of your business,” John said bitterly. 

Eddie guffawed, “Awful funny name.” 

John rolled his eyes.

“Glad we got a boy in the house, you know?” Eddie said, “Them girls never wanna talk.” 

“They’re frightened of you,” John scoffed. 

“Why’d they be scared o’ me, less they did sommat wrong.” 

John raised his eyebrow, “You told them if they mouthed off you would break their metacarpals.” 

“Their what’s?” 

“Hands,” John said with a sigh. 

“Oh, talk to you later, Marty, you got someone here.” 

John looked up. As he did every time someone new came in, he hoped for a moment that it was Pellinore. That he had come to rescue him. He would come and carry him to freedom and John would be able to curl up in their bed inside of Pellinore’s arms and sleep. And he would stop hurting. But, like every night, it was not Pellinore.

### September, London

John lay on his tiny and flea ridden bed. His body ached. For the first time he thought that perhaps dying would be better. Better even than Pellinore. If he had had cyanide beside him he’d have drunk the whole of it. But he didn’t. He was going to live on. There was always a guard. He would never be able to sneak off. And even if he could how far would he get. He still had no money. He nuzzled his face between the wall and the mattress. He tried to imagine he was back in Cambridge. That he would soon feel Pellinore wrap up around him. That for the first time in months he could feel safe. He could sleep more than a few hours. 

He almost could not remember what Pellinore’s fingers had felt like running through his hair. He wanted Pellinore’s touch to overwrite all of the others. He wanted Pellinore to kiss his skin and look at him with those adoring eyes. 

‘ _I have written something for you,_ ’ And John would listen as he read it to him. 

‘ _They made me, Pellinore. I didn’t know where to go. I was so afraid._ ’

Pellinore’s hand would brush his hair, ‘ _I know, John. You’re alright. Come home._ ’

‘ _I want to, Pellinore. How do I escape? How would you? You’re brilliant._ ’

He could almost feel Pellinore’s arms around him, ‘ _What is the most important thing?_ ’

‘ _Coming home to you, Pellinore. I would do anything._ ’

‘ _Then do anything._ ’

‘ _Help me, Pellinore._ ’

Soft in his mind came Pellinore’s voice, the lull he used for poetry, the familiar words of Baudelaire, but not true Baudelaire. It came through Pellinore’s voice in excerpts.  
_In the muddy maze of some old neighborhood,_  
_Often, where the street lamp gleams like blood,_  
_As the wind whips the flame, rattles the glass..._  
_Humanity, a shining Pactolus;_  
_Then through man's throat of high exploits it sings..._  
_Of all who mutely die_

It glinted under the bed, lying upon the floor. A gift. John dropped his hand down and fingered it. It slid across his skin and redness followed, dripping down it’s edge. 

He turned his head toward Eddie, in his customary spot in the doorway and smirked, “I’m coming home, Pellinore.” 

“Huh,” Eddie grunted. 

“I said, I have a question.” 

“Hm?” 

“Do you feel any guilt for keeping me here?” 

He grunted again. 

“Do you think, Edward, that the ability to inflict damage is the moral privilege to inflict damage.” 

“What’s that, now?” 

“Only a question about your moral integrity. For instance, is it necessarily wrong to kill someone if they’ve tried to kill you first?” 

Eddie laughed, “Tha’s just good sense.” 

“Sure, but what if they only try to hurt you. Can you kill them then?” 

“Boy, if somebody crosses me I break ‘em over my knee.” 

“Ah! So any damage at all warrants death? Those are the morals you ascribe to?” 

Eddie laughed. 

“Well, you see, there is the rub. What have I said, the morals you ascribe to? If one can ascribe their own morals, what use are they? Is there any tenant that holds some morals to a higher standard than others? Certainly it is not the law.” 

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, “Lighten me, why’s it not the law?” 

“Have you never felt slighted by the law? Never felt as though it were unjust?” 

“Law’s a rich man’s wayya keepin’ us inna dirt.” 

“Good man! Then, perhaps, the only truly _right_ thing to do, is whatever is most useful. Perhaps it changes, depending on where you are. For instance, if you were my guest, of course it would be contemptible for me to see you harm. But is it so abhorrent if you are my captor?” 

“You threatenin’ me, boy?” 

“Not at all, not at all. It was merely a supposition. A thought experiment if you will. I only am beginning to think that perhaps I am morally _obligated_ to do as the moment calls for. The morality of the moment as it were. Oh, I quite like that.” 

“You talk pretty for a whore.” 

“There are things forbidden by the law that I have taken great joy in.” 

“You kill somebody, kid?” 

John nearly purred, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“You’re a funny kid, Marty.” 

John let them sit in silence for awhile, “Edward?” 

“Marty?” 

John slunk out of his bed and sidled up to him. Eddie didn’t move, John barely came to his bicep, “It is an odd thing, fear.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Very helpful sometimes, you know. The instinct you get to run if you see a wolf. A parent’s desire to make sure their child hasn’t suffocated in it’s sleep. But it can run you aground.” 

“S’that so?” 

“For instance, I have spent quite a long time being afraid of you.” 

“You should be.” 

“But what are you going to do? Kill me? Break my bones?” 

“Yeah, kill you and break your bones, that about sums it up.” He grunted.

John cooed, “So what?” 

“You wanna get hurt, boy?” 

“Of course I don’t. But I am not finished.” 

“Don’t use that tone with me.” 

John smiled and came up beside him, “Fear also, occasionally, let’s you down in much the same way as I can only assume your father let you down.” 

“Huh?” he laughed, “By not being around?” 

John smiled glitteringly, “Precisely.” 

“How d’you work that out, Marty, fear bein’ a let down because you’re not afraid? That’s just being a man.” 

John tsked, he was glad Pellinore could not see him now. But he felt as though he had pulled back the veil. What he was doing was not just justifiable. It was right. 

He vaulted up the back of Eddie’s chair and wrenched his head back by the hair. Before Eddie could do anything like draw the blunderbuss from his belt, John had torn the jagged piece of glass he’d stolen from under the bed across his throat. Blood splattered thick and hot out of it. Eddie jerked and gagged and slumped over. 

John dropped the glass. No panic rose in his chest. Nothing rose in his chest. For how was this different than purchasing bread if he were hungry? Was there any difference at all? 

Yes. Of course there was. Someone was _dead_. His heart raced and he lost his breath. He swore and tried to steady himself, scorning the flashes of hot and cold that swept over his body. 

No. This was right. He was right. He tipped Eddie back upright and stripped him of his gun and ammunition. He attached it to himself then pilfered his pockets for money and the key. Eddie was too big, he’d need someone else’s clothing and boots. 

He walked downstairs with the gun and the key, silent in the shadows. 

“Hey!” A shout came from down the stairs as John descended. 

“Oh, Marty, get back up there, you know the big man don’t like you pretty things wanderin’ about.” 

Through the gloom he hadn’t seen the bloody hands, nor the heavy gun. Darwin wasn’t on guard, he was complacent. John raised his new gun and fired. The recoil knocked John back a step and he almost lost his grip on the gun, falling onto his bottom on the stair behind him. But the damage was done. 

The man’s body, head shattered, thunked to the ground. John fell on it, taking the smaller gun, more his size, and the wad of cash in his pocket. He stripped off his boots and put his feet in them, taking his jacket as well. 

The gunshot had awoken the others who began to scream and bustle around in terror. John slid inside the office, it being too late for Big Sir to be there. He used the key to open the pine box and took another wad of cash stored there. There was also a knife that he pocketed. He couldn’t get into the safe and didn’t have time to pick it, so he left it. 

He ran into the night, the rain fresh on his face. Boots on his feet he ran, his face breaking into a smile. If no one had found him yet, no one would find him. Sure they couldn’t stay in Cambridge but he was going home. He was going back to Pellinore. His priest as a boy had said words like ‘fervor’ and ‘faith’ and ‘zeal’ and he had told John that someday he would feel them. He did. He did.

### October, Cambridge

As certain as he was that he was not being chased by the law, he did not make a public appearance in Cambridge. He slunk in in the dead of night, making straight for his old flat. His heart hammered in his chest. It had been nearly six months. He ached for Pellinore. Every particle of his body yearned for him. And he was so close. Tonight he would hear his poem again. Tonight he would feel Pellinore’s lips against his own. 

He slunk up the stairs, careful to avoid Mrs. Trumple and stood before Pellinore’s door. His blood sped in his veins. He breathed into his hand and inhaled sharply to smell his breath. He inhaled slowly and exhaled. Then knocked on the door. He could hear rustling on the other side and his heart sped up. Heard the flaring on of a lamp and saw its glow under the door. He could not stand still. He was here. Pellinore. His Pellinore. Only a few feet away. 

The door handle turned and the door swung open. 

A skinny, bespectacled man greeted him, blinking tiredly, “Hello? Quite late for a caller, isn’t it?” 

“Who are you?” John demanded, fear sparkling through him. 

“You can’t ask me that when you’ve just knocked on my door in the middle of the night. Who are _you_?”

“Where is Pellinore Warthrop?” John asked, stepping forward menacingly. 

“Who in the blazes is Pellinore Warthrop?”

John stepped back. He’d gone. He moved. He was gone. John didn’t bid farewell. He turned to his own door and slammed his shoulder against it until it burst open. 

“My god!” The man blustered, “What the devil!” 

John breathed a sigh of relief. His things were untouched. Not that the room would have ever gotten another occupant, as small and cold as it was. He shoved some of his clothing, although it was quite dusty, into his new rucksack and took his savings from the drawer. Then he turned to the nightstand. 

He paused and opened it with great solemnity. If he could not have Pellinore, he could at least have his poems. His fingers itched for them. His heart sunk again, they were gone. 

Of course they were gone, he assured himself. Pellinore took them when he left. Pellinore was caring for them. Wherever he was. 

It dawned on him. His father. Pellinore’s father was the one paying for the flat, his father would have demanded he return home. Pellinore was at home. 

He jumped to realize the man was still shouting behind him, he brushed passed him and fled the scene, disappearing again into the night. Where _was_ home for Pellinore? Massachusetts in America, he knew that. But he had never been the Massachusetts and he could not recall the town Pellinore had said. New something or other. 

He sat on the bank of a little stream outside of town and laid back on the grass. For the first time since he’d been brutalized by the train station his heart was speeding as it used to. He didn’t try to slow it. It felt almost good, the return of sensation. The waking of a dormant beast. 

His breath gasped and he let it hit him, let it drag him down. Fear he would never see Pellinore clutched at his heart. Terror that he had gone home to the father who caused him so much distress and been hurt. Horror that if his father discovered the nature of their relationship, as he might have if he read the poems, Pellinore might be in an asylum himself. His body began to shake. 

“I will not abandon you, Pellinore,” He whispered into the night, “I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.” 

It hurt and he let it.


	6. Winter 1872-Fall 1874

#  **Winter 1872-Fall 1874**

### November, 1872

Six days in Paris and John had begun to understand the Hundred Years War. He found the French unlikable, difficult, and pretentious. Not least because his grasp on the language was patchwork at best. 

John had determined two places that Pellinore might be, Paris or Massachusetts. John was trying to be tactical, pragmatic. Massachusetts was more likely, but he had enough money to get to Paris now, Massachusetts would take time. In Massachusetts Pellinore’s father could have forced him into an asylum, not an urgent concern. Pellinore was over the age of majority and man, more than the whim of his father would be required to have him locked away. 

But a horrible possibility had occurred to him. In Paris Pellinore would be just as unemployed and penniless as John had been in London. What stopped what had befallen John from befalling Pellinore? And he was more delicate than John. At least in Massachusetts his father’s money would protect him from that. So he had gotten a ticket to Paris and launched his search. 

With no idea how to find someone in this great foreign city, John started by seeking out Pellinore’s poet friend, Arthur Rimbaud. He had not known Rimbaud had attracted any sort of actual fame and was surprised to find that his queries about his residence concluded with such brevity. Rimbaud had run off with another poet and they were in London. 

John could have sworn. He could not return to London, not for a good long while at least. He had cost Big Sir a great deal. Two guards and a great deal of cash. Not to mention that he was sure that with both of the guards dead the rest of the girls must have made their escape. He was somewhat pleased about that. Margaret had been replaced, so they had been back to six girls and John. All of them were out because of him. But regardless, Big Sir must be out for his blood. 

So rather than go to London after Rimbaud, John hunted through libraries and cafes, asking anyone who would wait through his broken French. But the name Pellinore Warthrop seemed to mean nothing to no one. 

“Pellinore, yes,” He said in spluttering French to a conclave of poets he’d sussed out on a veranda, half drunk on wine before the sun was a quarter of the way across the sky, “Pellinore Warthrop, he’s a poet, have you heard of him?” 

They shook their heads, the oldest among them answered for the group, “No, we have not, but come, sit with us, there is wine enough!” 

“You haven’t even heard of him?” John asked incredulously. 

“No, come now, one such as you, even an Englishman, must have a little time for wine with a poet.” He winked at John. 

Anger sliced up his spine and he slammed his fist onto the table, causing it to rattle and upset their drinks, “Damn you, damn you all. How could you have not heard of him! He is the finest poet the world has seen!” 

The men chuckled and seemed not at all harrassed, a small red haired man answered in accented English, “Good sir, I too find poetry resonates best when whispered through _labored breaths_. This is the sort of poetry he writes you, yes?” 

John could feel a blush sweeping over his face. He felt hot with rage. Not only that he was being rebuffed but that they were so cavalier. He and Pellinore could have sat with them. Could have been seen in public with each other. At least could have had friends who knew what they were. 

“Nevermind,” he said in English and turned on his heel away from the men. 

Perhaps a letter to his father. John dismissed the idea. Not only did he not have an address but he didn’t remember Pellinore’s father’s name. Alexander or something similar. He felt strange not knowing Pellinore’s father’s name, or his mother’s for that matter. But he knew that Pellinore preferred the smell of poppies to roses, that he liked blueberry scones but adored raspberry. He knew that he held his breath for the last moment before the sun crept above the horizon. He knew that the noises he made in ecstasy were different when he was above John or below him. He knew that he preferred a particular brand of ink to the point of obsessiveness. He knew how he took his tea. He knew that if he went too long without sleep he would become brooding and overly philosophical. He missed all of a sudden Pellinore’s little scowl most of all. The one he got when there was something he really wished to do, but he was instead doing an onerous responsibility. The rush of poetic inspiration while there was still schoolwork, or reading to be done while John reclined half dressed on the bed. 

But now, he was in Paris alone. And how could he search the whole city? How could he know Pellinore did not languish somewhere, beyond his view? How could he know if he was locked in some sordid house? 

He passed a hand over his eyes. He would endure it again if it would keep Pellinore unharmed. A shudder of horror overcame him. He would need to _go_ to brothels to find him. Could he stand it? Would there not be the danger of being imprisoned again? He was more finely dressed now, he had money for food and proper lodging. But would that be enough to protect him? 

Disgust gurgled in his belly. He was talking about _Pellinore_. Would he not be willing to risk himself a thousand times over for his Pellinore? He had canvassed the universities and artist’s circles and no one had heard of him. If he was in Paris and the librarians at the National Library had not heard of him, he was not where he wanted to be. 

He turned on his heel and marched back to the room he had taken out. He stood before the mirror and picked over his appearance. Very carefully he brushed back his hair and tied it at the nape of his neck in an elegant coiffure in the French style. He wore his finest clothes in muted colors. Trousers with a vest and coat.

The thought of what he was about to do nearly made him swoon. He sat on the floor and put his head between his knees. How could he do it? But only did he have to conjure the image of Pellinore braced and suffering on a bed such as he had known to bolster his resolve. He stood again and faced the door. 

Rethinking himself he slid the smaller of his two stolen guns into the pocket of his coat. He ought to sell the blunderbuss, it was far too large for him. But the small one was quite nice and he would like to have some insurance. This time he would get a shot off before it was taken from him. 

With the gun in his pocket he strode from the safety of his room. 

The sort of house he was looking for was easy to find. He knew what kind of street it was on. Right now, in the broad light of day the street was rather tame, no girls whistling at him out of windows. He kept his head up, entirely alert. His hand rested on his gun. 

He walked up to the door of the first house he found. Most, of course, would not operate like Big Sir’s. Most of the workers were there of their own volition, but he would not know until he asked. He knocked. A swoop of panic overcame him and overwhelming warm rushed over his skin, his heart thundered and the edges of his vision went dark. _Pellinore._ He breathed long and slow. 

The door opened. He was greeted by an ill clad girl, no older than him but probably younger, glaring at him. Her dress sleeves were rolled back and her hair was tied in a sloppy bun on the back of her head. 

“You need something?” She asked in rapid French. 

Awkwardly in her language, John replied, “I’m looking for someone.” 

She snapped out her hand, “Pay then.” 

He scowled and held his shoulders squarely, “That is not what I’m after. I’m looking for a man.” 

She gave him a saucy grin and winked, “Best try up the street then. Place with the red door.” 

He nearly gave in to the impulse of explaining himself, but she didn’t matter. He turned sharply and strode up the street to the door in question. It was attached to a brick townhouse and indeed, the door was bright scarlet. 

He knocked. 

The woman who greeted him here was much different than the girl down the street. Her grey streaked hair was in knotted quite elegantly and her clothing was the height of fashion. 

“We are not taking callers just now,” she said and began to close the door. 

John stepped forward, blocking her from shutting it on him, “Wait a moment.” 

Her glare was icy, “Our home is busy, sir. Come back in the evening.” 

It was then he noticed the blood on her hands and heard the moaning muffled by a door. “Someone is injured in there.” 

“It is no concern of yours.” 

He did not know what made him say it, “You misunderstand, I’m a doctor.”

She paused and narrowed her eyes at him, “A doctor? You are so young.” 

“I apprenticed with a doctor in Cambridge for a year, and before him I was alongside another doctor in England for three years.” 

She scoured him with her gaze appraisingly, “How much do you charge?” 

He named his price and she heaved a great sigh. Before she could respond he cut her off, “But half of that, for a favor.” 

She laughed, “I ought to have known. You did come here for something didn’t you.” 

“No,” he said fiercely, “Not that, I’m looking for someone, he might be- he might be working around here. I need to know if you know him.” 

“Fix up my girl, I’ll tell you what you want.” 

John nodded and she led him down the hall. The familiar scent of coupling and inexpensive perfume sent a sickened thrill through his heart and he ran his fingers over his gun to reassure himself. This wasn’t like last time. He could leave whenever he wanted. 

She led him to the kitchen where a girl way lain on the table gasping. He couldn’t do this. He was going to be sick. He was going to run. The door shut behind him and he nearly screamed. He had to do this. Pellinore needed him to do this. He felt it going away, the panic, yes, but everything else with it. The gaping pit that had yawned inside of his chest when he was locked away.

He beamed at the girl on the table. 

“He is a doctor, Colette, give him the supplies,” the woman said from the door. 

The young girl trying to attend to the moaning woman handed him the needle and sutures she’d been tentatively hovering over the torn flesh of the woman. 

“What happened?” John asked, peering at the wound. He thought it looked like a gunshot. He’d helped Dr. Harrison with two gunshot wounds. He thought he knew what he was doing. “A gun?” 

The moaning woman nodded. 

He winked at her and smiled, “You’ll be alright, just a minute.” 

This seemed to settle her down, he looked up at the woman in the door, the madame he thought, “I need a tweezers.” 

“Colette, go.” 

When he’d gotten his tweezers he pushed the wounded girl down and dug into her wound, searching out the bullet. A twinge of guilt rippled in his stomach. She had begun to scream and he only felt a little annoyed. He felt the tweezer hit something that wasn’t shoulder and he wiggled it around until he could get a firm grip and put out the metal. He dropped it on the table and stitched the wound closed as Dr. Harrison had showed him. The wound came together nicely and he grinned to himself. He was rather clever at this. 

“She’ll be fine,” He said to the madame. 

The madame inspected the stitched wound with a critical eye, “Clean. Good. Come now, let’s talk.” 

She gave him a rag to clean off his bloodied hands and led him out of the kitchen and into a tidy little office. She sat behind a large and ornate desk and motioned for him to sit opposite her. 

“My payment?” He asked, sitting. 

“Of course,” she replied, offering him the agreed price, “Now about the other half, what information do you want?” 

“I’m looking for a man. I need to know if he’s here, or working somewhere like this.” 

“He is a whore?” 

John frowned and rubbed his fingers over the gun in his pocket, “He might be. His name is Pellinore, Pellinore Warthrop.” 

She shrugged, “I do not know the name, but that does not mean all hope is lost. What does he look like?” 

“Tall, thin and pale, high cheekbones, dark hair and dark eyes. He would not be here by choice.”

She laughed, “You have described half of the boys employed in this city. But I will look, you saved my girl Margaret.” 

“That’s her name? Margaret?” 

“Yes, do you feel ill? You look suddenly so pale.” 

John stood up, “If you find him, tell me, this address,” he said scrawling his address on a scrap of paper, “And tell him John is here for him. Oh, he’s an American.” 

“I will look for your American, John.” 

John nodded at her, “Then I’ll leave.” 

“If you wish, there are plenty of boys upstairs. I could find you one tall and dark.” 

“No,” he said viciously, “I am not interested in your- in them.” He turned on his heel and marched from the building.

It was a week before a caller came, the same girl, Colette, from the brothel. 

“You have found him?” John asked her breathlessly, seizing her by the shoulders on his doorstep. 

She shook her head vehemently, “No, sir. No Americans. No Pellinores. And Madame she knows everybody.”

He could have cursed, but drew back, reminding himself that this was a good thing. This dead end was wonderful. Pellinore was not held as a whore. It was good. 

“Thank you,” he said, “Now go.” 

For three more months he searched. But no inquires made, nor favors leveraged got him anywhere close. Finally he was forced to give up his search. Pellinore had not come to Paris. That meant Massachusetts. He would find him. He had to find him. 

He’d continued his back alley doctoring, cleaning up small wounds and diseases from the lowest of Parisian riffraff. It had paid him enough. Enough to get him to America, to Massachusetts, to Pellinore. 

The ship ride was long and horrible. His cabin was tiny, infected with fleas and occupied by four other travelers. He spent most of the trip heaving over the side or tossing and turning on his bunk. 

But it was when he reached Massachusetts that the problems began. All he knew was that the name of the town began with ‘New’ that hardly narrowed it down. New Bedford, New Salem, New Ashford, New Braintree, but none of these towns had heard of anyone named Pellinore, nor indeed any sort of Warthrop. It cost him months, and every penny he had and somehow he still had nothing. It was as though Pellinore had vanished into the earth. 

It could not be done. Pellinore was gone from the earth. He hid in some corner that John could not reach. 

“I failed you,” he murmured,when, out of money and out of ideas, he sank to his knees outside of New Bedford, “I let you out of my grasp and I’ve failed you. Pellinore,” he lamented, “I miss you, Pellinore.” 

But where else could he look? He could not scour the globe without a heading. Not for the first time he wondered if Pellinore had been a real entity at all. An opium dream from the asylum perhaps. Or worse, if he had been indeed real but John’s disappearance had provided the opportunity he needed to flee the lunatic boy? 

John rose to his feet and refused that possibility. He would not have taken the poems if he had not wanted to wait for him. The poems, Pellinore’s voice in the dark, these were the only things that didn’t shift and mutate with every possing hour. Goodness and evil might be as fleeting as the tides, but Pellinore loved him. Pellinore would always love him.

### September, 1874, Guintacan Island, Philippines

John Kearns slid through the sun dappled underbrush, his booted steps making less than a rustle of noise. The forest pressed too close around him for his rifle to be of much use, it hung on his back. Instead he was armed with a machete that he gripped in one hand. 

He heard a crunch and flattened himself to a tree. His heart sped deliciously and he smirked. He was close. Whatever the thing was that had been devouring the innards of the locals was certainly not the wolf the Spaniards thought it was. John knew what wolf attacks looked like. This was something else. Something he had never seen before. And in the last two years, he had seen a lot. 

His eyes roved sharply over the thickly green foliage but he saw no movement beyond leaves. He cocked his head to the side and listened. The birds had stopped singing and an eerie silence permeated the brush. His grip on his machete tightened and his grin widened. 

The sharp aroma of a fire jolted him. No one would be foolish enough to come out here during the height of the attacks, surely. He laughed silently to himself as he started off toward them. Clearly someone was stupid enough. And better for him. He had been trying to work out how he would get himself a good shot in the thick forest.

It wasn’t as though he were putting them in danger. They had put themselves in danger. He was merely going to not tell them he planned on keeping them alive. He crept near the camp and sheathed his machete. Quietly he scampered into a tree, finding a secure place to nestle in where he could see the camp. 

He slung his rifle around and situated himself, looking into the clearing where the fire was crackling. A young man was tending to it, not a local. He was obviously neither Filipino nor Spanish. Broad shouldered and blonde. Quite handsome. 

“Hey!” The man called, turning to look out of the camp, “You want to help or what?” 

Another young man appeared out of the forest, scowl on his slender, high cheekboned face. 

John’s heart seemed to tumble over itself. He would not have been surprised if it had stuttered to a stop. Here, in the wilds of the world. Across miles and oceans. He was here.

Entirely different, gaunter face and longer hair, but somehow exactly the same. 

He had no control, he felt dizzy. He did not mean to call out but call out he did, “Pellinore!” 

His head snapped up and he took a step back, his face drained of all color. He looked as though he were seeing the dead, “John?” 

Movement exploded behind Pellinore, leaves and branches breaking away. A gargantuan creature came forth, claws extended, long as knives. Like an ebony skinned dog that could stand upon its hind legs. Pincer mouth snapping. 

John reacted, he lifted his rifle and took his shot. 

“No!” Pellinore screeched like an animal’s howl. 

John’s shot was true, blood spattered out from its sundered eye, the bullet having gone straight into the brain, and the thing fell in a crumpled heap. 

John leapt down in an elegant arc, running forward. “Pellinore!” A monster had just come out of the bush and now bled out on the ground. But all he could think of was the man in front of him. Was Pellinore. 

He had dreamed of this moment. He had longed for it for two unendurable years. He had never acclimated to waking up without Pellinore. Still saw things in shops he wanted to purchase for him. Still wandered into every bakery that sold scones. And here he was. He had bent his knees to vault into Pellinore’s arms. 

And then he really saw him. 

Pellinore had drawn back. His arms were crossed over his belly. Jaw set firmly. 

John pulled up short. 

Pellinore was looking in between him and the dead beast behind him. John’s curiosity over it had been entirely eclipsed by Pellinore’s appearance. Even this close he could not bring himself to care. Pellinore’s eyes were not right. They were narrowed and cold. Every memory John had of them were soft, so wide he could see through them and into the heart of Pellinore himself. Those were they eyes he had dreamed about. Not these flecks of ice. 

John stood in terrible stillness while Pellinore rocked back and forth. 

“You two know each other, Pell?” The other man came up with a broad grin, he clapped John on the shoulder, “Hell of a shot, by the way.” 

Pellinore’s face twisted with malice, “We’ve been hunting the Manananggal for thirteen days! Precision tracking! Complex traps! And here you are _ruining it!_ ” He stamped his foot on the ground like an irate child. 

John pulled back, “Ruining it? I saved your life, Pellinore. I thought you would be grateful. Or...happy to see me.” The last sentence didn’t have the indignation of the rest, it was small and lost.

Pellinore looked as though he had been struck. His eyes widened but did not become any warmer, he seemed to shake with the effort of containing his emotion. His voice emerged as a thin hiss, “Grateful? You wish for me to be _grateful_.” 

The other man laughed, “Come on, Pell, that thing was going to devour us! He did save our lives. We outta pack this thing up to New York then buy him a drink.” 

“Buy him a drink?” Pellinore said scathingly, turning his ire on his companion. His astoundingly attractive companion. “Buy him a drink? He has ruined our expedition, John. We were instructed to bring it back alive.” 

“John?” John asked, looking at the blonde man who was a few inches taller than himself and far more muscular. 

He rolled his eyes at Pellinore and grinned holding out his hand, “John Chanler, pleasure to meet you.” 

John shook it, although he did not look away from Pellinore, “John Kearns, the pleasure is mine.” 

“Well, nice to meet you, Kearns,” Chanler said, “Look, I don’t really want to spend any more time being eaten alive than I’ve got to, so why don’t I go and cut down our traps. Pell, you wanna get this fella ready to ship back home?” 

“Fine.” 

“See you in an hour,” Chanler said and slipped off into the forest. 

Pellinore and John stared at each other, listening to Chanler’s footsteps fading in the distance. When at long last silence returned Pellinore, giving no forewarning, launched himself at John. 

He wrenched him up by the lapels of his jacket and kissed him. 

John, his heart exploding, dug his hands immediately into Pellinore’s hair and returned the kiss. He felt as though, after these terrible two years, he was finally home. 

Pellinore howled and leapt back, his thin chest heaving, “I can’t do this! I can’t do this! Damn you, John!” 

“Pellinore-” John said, “I know- I know I was gone a long time…” 

“You _left_.” Pellinore sneered, “You left without a word. With no warning at all. You just left into the night.” His voice quailed into a whimper, “You told me you loved me.” 

“Pellinore,” John said soothingly, “You know I had to go.” 

Pellinore struck him. A single slap across the cheek. John’s head snapped to the side and his was shocked into stillness. 

“You _had_ to?” Pellinore asked in a cruel whisper, “You had to go? Why? Because you could not stand to stay?” 

“No!” John shouted, “No!” It was impossible to him. He had been sure. He had been confident that Pellinore would know. Would know he would never leave unless there was nothing else to be done, “You thought I would just leave you?” 

“That is what you did!” Pellinore held his shoulders loftily and spoke in a cruel imitation of John’s voice, “We’ll go to Paris together, Pellinore. We’ll have wine with your poet friends, Pellinore. We’ll see the world together, Pe-Pellinore.” He didn’t make it through before sobs broke though his voice. 

“Pellinore,” John said, stepping forward and laying a hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t _touch_ me!” he shrieked pulling away, “Don’t ever touch me again!” 

“What- what, Pellinore...I...Didn’t you _know_?” 

“Know what?” He spat, cradling himself in his arms, “Know that you duped me? That you never intended to stay? That I was merely a convenience with a warm place to sleep?” 

A pit was opening inside of John’s stomach that seemed to be devouring his intestines, his heart, his blood. “No...no...I loved you. I- I do love you.” 

Pellinore struck him again roaring, “You do not get to say that to me!” 

“Pellinore I murdered someone!” 

Pellinore reeled away from him, “You what?” 

“Dr. Adams.” 

Concern flickered briefly over Pellinore’s face, “The doctor from the asylum. You killed him? Why? When?,” He stepped forward, “Are you alright?” He swore and scampered back again, scowling. 

John nodded, “Yes...It was that night. The night I left. He was the colleague visiting Dr. Harrison. He recognized me, Pellinore. He was going to send me back. He attacked me. I had to go, Pellinore. And I couldn’t ask you to come. I couldn’t ask you to be a fugitive for me.” 

Pellinore, standing in what John recognized as false coolness, shrugged, “I don’t believe you.” 

“What are you doing here, Pellinore?” John asked desperately, “What are you doing hunting this- this-?”

 

“ _Putris Bellua_ , or in the native tongue, Manananggal.” Pellinore said as though he were giving a lecture. 

“Alright, so what were you doing?” 

“This is what I _do_ , John. I study cryptids. This is a cryptid. I wanted it alive but that victory was taken from me.” 

“This _isn’t_ what you do. You’re- You’re a poet.” 

“No. No, I am not. I don’t write poetry anymore.” 

It felt to John as though he had been struck a third time, “You don’t- Pellinore. You… Because of me?” 

Pellinore’s lip curled, “Yes.” 

“So, then I can assume that this is what your father does. Science you called it.” 

“Monstrumology, specifically.” 

John nodded absently, “Can I have them back, at least?” 

“Have what back? “

“My poems. I’ve missed them. I wanted to go back for them but I didn’t think I could have stood to go back and not see you.” 

“I don’t have them.” 

“Well, of course you don’t have them here. We’re in the middle of a forest in the Philippines.” 

“No, John. I don’t have them. I burned them.” 

John’s voice shook and he felt weak, “No. No! You didn’t. You’re lying!” 

Pellinore sneered at him, “You left them behind, John! I burned them! You clearly didn’t want them!” 

“They were _everything_ ,” John shouted, hot tears escaping down his cheeks, he leapt at Pellinore and struck his fists lamely against his chest, “That is the only way I could go. Every step away from you hurt.” His voice shook in sobbing tears. His knees shook then collapsed under him. He fell to the ground in sobs, his hands remained fisted and dragged down Pellinore’s body as he fell, “They aren’t gone. They can’t be gone. No. No. No. No. No.” The old panic was coming back, terrible shuddering of his heart, tiny ineffectual breaths. He curled forward onto his elbows, head bowed. 

“John?” Pellinore asked. And he almost sounded truly like Pellinore. 

John looked up at him from the ground. 

“John...You- You really- Tell me honestly, John. Did you want to leave?” 

“No,” He whined, “Never. Pellinore, all I wanted was to come home. To you. Pellinore I missed you every moment. How could I ever leave you?” He pulled himself to his feet. Pieces of his long hair were falling out of their tether around his face. 

Pellinore stepped toward him and brushed them back, “John, I missed you every moment.” 

John leapt up and pressed his lips against Pellinore’s. Pellinore returned the kiss ardently and he shoved John back firmly, pressing him against a tree. The taste of him returned to John drove me near to madness, the feel of him against his skin. But with sudden aggression, Pellinore pushed himself firmly away, “No, John.” 

John’s eyes were wide and lost, “What can I do, Pellinore? What can I do to convince you?” 

“It doesn’t matter, John.” 

“Of course it matters! It’s the only thing that matters.” 

“No, John. There is- there is someone else.” 

John’s blood ran cold in his veins. 

John’s horror was interrupted by the clomping of boots into the camp. 

“Hey, Pell, you done with the- oh- have you really not even started?” 

John spun away from Chanler. Tall and broad chested John Chanler. John Chanler with a fiercely attractive jawline and biceps that could be seen through his shirtsleeves. John Chanler who called him, ‘ _Pell_.’

Fiercely John wiped the tears off of his face and was smiling broadly by the time he faced Chanler again, “That would be my fault, Mr. Chanler.” 

“Oh well, sure,” he said with a broad smile, “Can’t complain so much when you’re the reason we’re still kicking. When’d you meet Pellinore?” He dropped the netting he had over his shoulder onto the ground. Stiffly Pellinore crossed the clearing, away from Kearns and toward Chanler. 

“We were...quite close while Pellinore was attending University. Neighbors in fact. Nearly inseparable.” 

Chanler gave him a jovial wink, “Guess I’ll have to fight you for him,” then he laughed heartily. 

John, however, spoke in a dead voice, “Yes, I suppose we will.” 

Pellinore’s head snapped up. He had been inspecting the heretofore forgotten monster, on a knee before it. But now he was looking unsteadily between John and Chanler. 

“Would the two of you like any help? I am quite practiced in bleeding corpses dry.” John said silkily, his eyes unmoving from Chanler. 

“Are you?” Chanler asked, “That’d be great, we’ve only done it with small stuff.” 

“Well I must admit, my most exotic trophy previous to this was an escaped circus tiger, but the theory should be similar.” 

“Yes,” Pellinore said through his teeth, “The theory is the same, so we will not need your help. You can go, John.” 

“Hey I’m not going- oh, him,” Chanler said. 

“Yes, _Kearns_ ,” Pellinore reiterated, “you can go.” 

“You can’t run him out of camp, Pell, the man saved our lives.” 

“John, he destroyed our expedition.” 

“The thing was jumping at you, Pell, if he hadn’t gunned it down you’d be dead. I for one am glad he bungled the hunt for us.” 

The compassionate note in Chanler’s voice filled John’s head with the horrific vision of Chanler bent over Pellinore, his name on Pellinore’s lips. Jealous fury sparked through John’s heart. 

John forced his smile to widen, “Give me a hand, won’t you Chanler? The thing has got to be elevated.”

John, Chanler, and eventually Pellinore succeeded in hanging the creature by its ankles so it could be properly bled, although Pellinore did collect more than a few vials of its blood. 

“So...what is it?” John asked. He had temporarily forgotten about its strangeness with the reappearance of Pellinore, but overburdened by jealousy though his mind might have been, eventually it did remind him that the thing he’d shot was very much a monster. Not to mention that his soft poet had essentially declared himself a Monster Scientist. 

“Well they call it a Manananggal,” Chanler said, “The locals anyway. See these big teeth? They like munching on human guts. Not the meat though, just guts.” 

“They do eat some muscular tissue,” Pellinore reminded him, “They are particularly fond of fetuses.” 

“Hmm,” John said, “And you study these?” 

Chanler laughed, “Well we study lots of things like this, didn’t Pell tell you?” 

“We were acquainted before he had found this pursuit.” 

“Oh yeah, what was he up to? I’m sure it was something serious, probably bored you stiff about it.” 

John tilted his head and regarded him almost challengingly, “Do you find him boring?” 

Chanler laughed, “Well sure, a little bit.” 

Pellinore glowered at Chanler. Chanler shrugged back at him, boyish grin on his face, so he missed the frigid glare John fixed on him. 

Two hours later and the creature was a prepared for transportation as it would ever be. John had momentarily given up his grudge match to pepper the both of them with questions about monsters. From Chanler he got emotive tales of adventure. From Pellinore he got dry recollections about scientific trivia and clipped reminders that they were ‘cryptids’ not ‘monsters.’ 

“Well we won’t be getting back to town tonight,” Chanler said, “Too dark to bother picking up camp, and we’ll move slow with all this to haul back.” 

“Kearns can go on ahead,” Pellinore said icily. 

“Nonsense, you want some dinner, John?”

John smiled at Chanler, “That sounds absolutely delightful, John.” 

“John!” Pellinore snarled. 

Both of them turned to him, “What?” 

Chanler laughed, “Hell, this is confusing. You mind if I call you Jack? You look like a Jack.” 

John glared icily, “Yes, I would mind a great deal.” 

Pellinore narrowed his eyes at John, but Chanler only grinned, “Oh, sorry, John it is then. You’ll stay for dinner and we can all go back together in the morning.” 

“Splendid,” John said emotionlessly. 

Chanler, looking at John for a moment in utter confusion, turned and built the fire back up. He started digging through his pack for cooking supplies. With Chanler’s back turned Pellinore pulled John’s shoulder around roughly, glaring. 

Silently he mouthed, “ _I know what you’re doing. Leave_ ”

This direct command, to leave when he had travelled so far to find him, wounded John to the core. But he grinned back. He could not help but lean into Pellinore’s touch, rough as it was. 

Pellinore did not say a word throughout all of dinner, he seemed capable only of staring grouchily at his food, that small frown John so loved between his eyes. Chanler was another matter entirely, he wanted stories from John, and for John to listen to his. Could he not see that John could barely tear his eyes from Pellinore? How had _he_ the man lucky enough to have earned Pellinore’s heart, treat him so cavalierly? How was he not pressing kisses upon him while he could? How did he dare look at Pellinore as though he were anything less than Adonis walking among mortal men?

John would have given anything to switch places with him. Is that why Pellinore wanted him to leave? That he might whisper words of adoration into Chanler’s ear while Chanler shook beneath him. John cocked his head and reconsidered Chanler. While Chanler shook above him perhaps. 

He was thankful when darkness finally set in and he was released from speaking with Chanler. He was likable and John detested him. He wondered if he ought to take it as a compliment that he had been replaced by another chatty blonde, and named John too. When that name shuddered passed Pellinore’s lips he wondered if Pellinore always thought of the correct John. 

John curled up on his bedroll, his back to Pellinore, cloaked in absolute darkness. It came over him all at once. The terror of the brothel and the anxiety of the hunt. The nights when the fading memory of Pellinore had been all that kept his heart beating beneath his chest. The vestiges of his kisses that held the fragmenting pieces of his mind together. He had wanted to die. He could have. The glass could have gone into his throat instead. 

But he had come for Pellinore, and Pellinore was not here for him. 

Stiffening his stomach with horrible agony kept the sobbing at bay, but tears slid hotly down his cheeks. He was gone. Pellinore had found someone else. He had gone where he would not let John follow. And for John, there was no one else. There was only Pellinore. 

A hand reached out in the dark and took his. 

He shuddered and gripped Pellinore’s fingers. If Chanler had not been so near he would have begged. 

Then he felt breath upon his face and Pellinore was beside him, his taller body a hair’s breadth from John’s. His long fingers found John’s face and wiped the tears away. John leaned up toward the touch, grasping Pellinore’s hand and holding it to his face, kissing his fingers. 

He pulled John against him, John’s back pressed firmly to Pellinore’s chest. His long arms around him, their legs tangling. 

John could barely draw breath. He wanted to say his name, but he feared than any noise would scare him away, so he bit his lip and wriggled deeper into his arms. 

Pellinore’s lips were on his hair. He could not stop himself. He turned his head and caught Pellinore’s lips with his own. His hand flew to Pellinore’s cheek, his pleas silent. 

Pellinore hesitated for a terrible moment before his lips began to move against John’s, his hands crawling over John’s torso. This is what he had dreamed of. Pellinore holding him in the dark. John kissed him desperately, clinging. 

It was all of the repugnant touches being cleaned away, Pellinore the Redeemer, coming to salvage the unbroken pieces. He had been afraid he would cry out in fear but he could do nothing but welcome Pellinore’s fingers as they sought the skin beneath his shirt. His lips as they kissed his neck. He bit his lip to remain quiet. 

He felt Pellinore press against him, hardness apparent through their clothes. It was only then that he spoke, less than a breath of a whisper against Pellinore’s ear, “Do you still love me?” 

Pellinore gripped him close and within his chest his heart began to thunder. Pellinore pressed his lips to John’s ear and he breathed, “Yes.”


	7. Fall 1874

#  **Fall 1874**

### September 1874, New York City

Perched precariously on the window ledge of the old brownstone he had hunted down, John Kearns fingers curled against the chilly stone, holding himself in place two floors over street level. There was a lamp burning inside and he had a clear view of Pellinore bent over his desk with his back to the window. His hair had gotten long while he’d been in the Philippines and he had not yet cut it. He watched a lock of it slip down in front of Pellinore’s face and those long, pale fingers tuck it back. 

There was something not quite the same about his Pellinore. _Not your Pellinore_ he reminded himself, John Chanler’s Pellinore. But that was what he was here for. If Pellinore thought that he could slip him in the Philippines and that John would not follow him back to New York City, he was gravely mistaken. 

He tapped on the glass. 

Inside Pellinore jumped badly, knocking his knees against the desk and nearly upsetting the lamp. His hand shot out to steady it and then then he looked round to the window. 

John’s heart swooped when Pellinore’s eyes met his. 

Pellinore’s eyebrows shot up and he scampered to the window then stopped unsure. The window had to swing out to open and he would knock John from his perch. His hands flailed before the latch, uncertainty marring his face. 

John gave him a broad grin and swung himself out so he was half hanging over the empty night that stood between him and the street far below. Only a toe upon the window sill and one hand holding fast, his body arched out into the open air, free hand hanging out. 

Pellinore swung open the window, “My god, John, what the devil are you doing?”

John danced lightly around the open window until he was crouched on the sill before Pellinore like a golden gargoyle, “May I come in, Pellinore?” 

“You might have used the door.” 

“And spoil our privacy?” 

Pellinore frowned and clasped his hands behind his back, turning his head from John, “We do not need privacy, John. Why should we?” 

“You know, if you don’t let me in, I might lose my grip.” 

Pellinore huffed and moved aside, “Come in then.” 

John slid inside and latched the window behind him, drawing the shades, “Where does our good man Chanler sleep?” 

“What? Oh- two doors down. Do you want me to fetch him?” He took a nearly hopeful step toward the bedroom door. 

John’s hand leapt out and took him by the wrist, “No, not at all. I only wanted to make sure there was no eavesdropping.” 

Pellinore mumbled at the ground, “There will be nothing worth hearing.” 

John angled his head down and looked up at Pellinore through his lashes. It was not up quite so far as it once was, he had grown some since their year together. “Won’t there be?” 

“John,” Pellinore said softly, “I told you...there is someone else.” 

John did not let himself frown, “You also told me you loved me.”

John was having a hard time reconciling this unsure boy before him, who fidgeted and pulled at his shirtsleeves, with the half-god he had conjured up during his internment. Was it Pellinore who had changed, or was it him?

Had something else come with the few inches he had gained? Certainly there had been a time when Pellinore telling him that he loved someone else would have marked the end of the game. But he felt only incensed. Only ready to prove that Pellinore was the one who had strayed. 

Pellinore ducked his head and looked away from John, who was softly biting his bottom lip, “John… Yes… Yes… I suppose I ought not lie...I do still love you...I cannot…” He couldn’t put the words together, he looked at John with pleading eyes. 

John read into the pleas what he wanted and he stepped forward into Pellinore’s space. He put his hands upon Pellinore’s hips and he canted his head forward. Pellinore gave in so easily. His eyes fluttered closed and he leaned toward John, lips parting slightly. 

John was sorely tempted. He always wanted desperately to kiss Pellinore, and here he was, obviously willing, but he had words for him first. He rested his forehead against Pellinore’s and lifted a hand to his jaw, his thumb scraping over its bristles. 

“Pellinore,” he whispered, his lips so close they brushed against Pellinore's. He lost the train of what he had come to say, Pellinore smelled so intoxicatingly like Pellinore that he had become entirely distracted. 

“John?” Pellinore whispered, “And you...do you still love me?”

John nuzzled Pellinore’s throat with his nose and lips, “What a foolish question,” he was remembering all of the things he had thought to say, “I have something to tell you." 

"So tell me."

“ _While I suffered, Pellinore_  
_I clove to you, whom I adore,_  
_Whom, lost, I called with scream and roar,_  
_From wretched Earth to Hell's dark shore._  
_I will love you, Pellinore."_  


Pellinore touched his fingers to John's lips, “Did you write that?” 

John tenderly lifted Pellinore's hand and set his face against his, he pressed his lips to his ear, “I thought it time that I be the one writing for you.” 

Pellinore turned his head and caught John’s lips with his own. John’s stomach swooped deliciously and he tightened his grip on Pellinore’s jaw, his other hand pulling him closer by the hip. Let Chanler come in. Let him find them like this, with Pellinore’s hands crawling needily over John’s body and those small and desperate moans coming from his throat. 

John pressed him back, step by step, his nimble fingers slid up the loose tails of Pellinore’s shirt and he felt the slender torso he had so missed. He had not forgotten the spots upon it he had so carefully learned. He freed the buttons and lowered his mouth to Pellinore’s collar bone and the soft flesh just above it. He knew the place by memory and sucked at it, pulling the skin softly against his teeth. 

Pellinore shuddered helplessly. John found he liked Pellinore’s hair this length, long enough to tumble on his shoulders when Pellinore threw back his head. Meanwhile John’s hands were at Pellinore’s sides, revisiting all of the places that made Pellinore’s chest flush pink. 

He made short work of the buttons of Pellinore’s shirt and slid it from his shoulders, his mouth laying siege to the newly exposed skin. 

Pellinore was shaking, his fingers scrabbling at John’s skin, trying desperately to bare John’s own chest. 

“John,” He gasped, “John, _please_ I want to see you again.” 

Feeling more as though he were partaking in an unveiling than disrobing, John loosed his clothing and let it slide from his body. Bared, he stepped out of the pool of his trousers around his feet and lifted his arms to display the now well muscled planes of his torso and cords of his arms. One hand palming a small tin. 

Pellinore reached out one of his pale hands, coming within an inch of contact. Those eyes, consumed in adoring greed that would cast King Ahab as a saint. Those eyes made the burden of Jack’s beauty worth its bearing. 

“Pellinore,” John purred. He commanded his gaze, staring into Pellinore’s dark eyes. His fingers found the placket of Pellinore’s trousers and loosened it, until Pellinore was an unencumbered by vestments as John. 

John sauntered passed Pellinore and sat upon the bed, pulling Pellinore with him by the wrist. John settle himself quite comfortably against the headboard and arranged the pliant Pellinore until he was sitting facing him, Pellinore’s long legs wrapped about John’s slender waist. 

John did not allow time to elapse but beset Pellinore on three fronts simultaneously. With his nose and lips he licked and kissed and bit all of the most sensitive spots on Pellinore’s chest and neck. With one hand he tenderly traced Pellinore’s length that pressed against John’s stomach. Pellinore made a long sustained noise and his head dropped onto John’s shoulder. With his remaining hand, fingers dipped in the contents of his tin, he eased Pellinore open, seeking the spot within him that would make him cry out. 

He rather hoped that Chanler would come in just then, while Pellinore was mewling atop him and realize that he was only a petty replacement for John himself. 

His name was pouring from Pellinore’s lips and John thrummed with power. He withdrew his fingers and urged Pellinore to rise a few inches. Eagerly he did and allowed John to align himself before sinking back down. John threw his head back silently but Pellinore began to speak. As John rocked his hips in coordination to the movement of his hand, poetry spilled from Pellinore. The half formed, belaboured kind he used to write in the heat of things. 

For John it was a divine thing. To have Pellinore around him and above him, to be covered in his smell, to be intoxicated by the sounds coming from his lips. Pellinore was beyond the the electric heat that sparked through John’s belly and the fire that followed his touch. Pellinore’s fingers sank through the petty skin of John’s flesh and went deep within him. Glory be to Pellinore Warthrop. 

John knew from experience that fluttering of Pellinore’s stomach that preceded him, they way he lost his words and his breath faltered. And then he was falling into the abyss and dragging John with him. John bit at his neck to keep himself from screaming out, sucking Pellinore's skin roughly while Pellinore spent himself over his stomach and John with him.

Boneless and shivering Pellinore fell forward, sweetly nuzzling John’s neck and shoulders, leaving tiny kisses on his skin. 

“John,” he said against his neck, “I love you, John!” 

John gripped his arms around him, feeling whole, “I love you, Pellinore.” 

The memories of hunting exotic beasts, of traversing the world after Pellinore, of his lost months in the brothel seemed draped in an opaque veil. What was it he had said to Eddie about morality? He could not draw up the inhuman chill that had choked him. Could not conjure how he had felt like a corpse that could still draw breath. 

Pellinore laughed and flung himself off of John’s lap, “The sunrise, John!” He turned and he froze, facing the wall opposite. the bed. In the flat in Cambridge this was where the window would have been. But here was only the door to the hall. Pellinore’s body went rigid. Jack could see that his breath had been reduced to tiny, shallow breaths. 

“No,” he began to shake, “What have I done?” He collapsed downward, his head falling into his hands where he made a pathetic noise, “What have I done!” 

“Pellinore?” John asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder. 

Pellinore leapt from the bed and spun to face him, his eyes were wide and shaking, “You. John. You seduced me. And I- I betrayed-”

John leaned back against the headboard. It was hard not to feel pangs of triumph with Pellinore kiss bitten and love marked in front of him. Where he had sucked at his neck in their last moments was already bruising. It would leave a mark for many days. “Come now, Pellinore,” he said, “It’s been obvious from the start that you only meant to replace me. But I’ve returned, there is no need for anyone else.” 

“I-what?”

“Come on, blonde and handsome, who does that sound like? His name is even John.” 

Pellinore was glaring in confusing at him, “What are you talking about? Whose name is John?” 

“Chanler, Pellinore. My replacement.” 

“I am not in love with John Chanler!” 

John’s triumphant smirk widened, “Aren’t you? Is it only me then?” 

“No! John...Chanler and I are nothing like that to each other. It isn’t Chanler, he is my friend.”

John sat up straight, “What? You aren’t with Chanler?” 

“No. Her name-”

“Her?”

“Yes, John, her. Her name is Muriel, Muriel Banks, I- I intend to marry her.” 

John stood and crossed the room, turning his back on Pellinore, “ _Her?_ You are going to marry her? Marry her, Pellinore?” 

“Yes. I intend to. I love her, John.” 

“You love _me_!” 

Pellinore’s face contorted, “Yes! I do! And do you know the pain that that has cause me! Of course you do not, you weren’t there! I wept for you! For two years I was in abject pain for you-”

John interrupted him, his voice became unpleasantly high, “-I told you why I left!” 

“But I didn’t know that! I thought you had abandoned me. I thought that I had been not enough for you and that you had left me without a word of goodbye. For months I could not sleep, I could not stop crying, I could barely eat. I do not care if you intended to hurt me, John Kearns. You did. I cannot go back to a time when you haven’t been the cause of my destruction. Muriel is kind, she is sweet, and beautiful, and she has not left me.” 

John crossed his arms over his chest, he felt suddenly bare and self conscious. He shuffled back to his clothing and started pulling it back on his back to Pellinore. Tears were rising in his throat and he tried to subdue them, taking gasping breaths.

“I love Muriel, and I intend to marry her, share my life with her.” 

John, suddenly furious, spun on him, wild grin on his face, his shirt still unbuttoned, he laughed a terrible laugh, “Enjoy her then, Pellinore, live with her in your familial home and care for your aging father and raise your three children. But when they are crying in the middle of the night and she is angry at you for your habits remember that you could have had me. That we could have lived in Paris together and seen the whole of the world!” 

Pellinore hefted a book and threw it at him. It crashed against the wall when John ducked it and Pellinore bellowed, “Do not throw that back at me! There was nothing I wanted more than to go to Paris with you! _Nothing._ But you left. And do not tell me that you had to. Because you did not have to go without a word. You could have told me. I would have waited for you. I would have waited the rest of my life for you.” 

John scrambled forward, pleading, “Come with me now! We can go to Paris. I will give you anything you want!” 

Pellinore lurched back, “No. You have taken enough. I cannot go now. I have my studies. I have found something that calls to me.”

“Poetry called to you.” 

“No, I waited for fleeting bursts of inspiration and wrote tawdry lines unworthy of the ink they were written with. But _Monstrumology._ It does not turn me aside. It is the only thing that can never fail.” 

“Then finish your studies,” John said, “I will wait here for you. We can hunt monsters together. There is nothing I would enjoy more.”

Pellinore indeed looked very tempted but he turned his face aside, “No, John. I will not abandon Muriel. For she has not abandoned me. You should go.” 

John flung open the window and leapt onto the sill. The chilly wind whipped inside and ruffled his hair as he turned back. Dead eyes looked at Pellinore as though a mask had come up that turned his beautiful face into a thing of inhuman horror. When he spoke it sounded closer to a threat than an endearment, “I will always love you, Pellinore Warthrop.”

### October 1874, New York City

Pellinore hunched his narrow shoulders down against the cold, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. He had cursed and sworn but somehow Chanler had managed to wrangle a promise out of him to join him for the evening. 

He bided his time outside the pub door. He could hear the bustling noise coming from inside and he was exhausted just from the thought of being beset by it. He wanted to go home. Light a fire in the grate and curl up before it. He cursed aloud. 

Surely there would come a day when his casual daydreams were not of the Cambridge flat and when the idea of going home did not entail returning to the arms of John Kearns. But even after two years in his absence he still thought he would wake in his arms. He still thought of him when Muriel made him smile or in the moments before he fell asleep. 

He had dreamed for so long of John’s return. That he might swoop in, dashing and heroic then fall to his knees and cry out that he never would have dreamt of leaving Pellinore. That he had been forced to run and leave Pellinore behind. And then he had come, he had appeared from the wild more handsome than Pellinore remembered and saved his life from the clutches of a monster. 

And here he was again, irresistibly close, Pellinore need only say the word and the dreams of a life in Paris with his John Kearns would be realized. But he could not. John had left him once and it had torn him apart. He could not stand to allow himself on that precipice again. Muriel was a gentle meadow ensconced in sun and John was sprinting along the edge of the world.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had been standing outside now for a long time, he ought to go in. He pushed inside and was greeted by a cacophony of sound that nearly drove him back out. But his name was called and he was forced to try to navigate the crowd. 

“Hey, Pell!” John Chanler called to him from a back booth, “You took long enough, get over here, let me get you a drink.” 

Pellinore cleared the group of chattering people in his way and got his first good view of their booth. Chanler had found one in a quiet little area, which Pellinore appreciated, but he had not come alone. Sitting beside him, and looking quite smug, was John Kearns, smirking as only he could. 

Pellinore stiffened and awkwardly approached the table. He hadn’t seen John since he had run him out of his room. But the prior contact he had had with him had renewed Pellinore’s want for him. Not just to repeat what they had done, but his desire to hold him in his arms while he slept, to thieve his shirtsleeves when he went away on a hunting trip. To study or read while John read across the room. The desire to once again freely purchase small trinkets or treats that made him think of John, that he knew would make that enchanted little smile brighten over his face. A desire not for physical intimacy only but domestic intimacy. 

_Muriel will offer you that._ He reproached himself. That was what she offered, and he loved her. She was beautiful and kind and she looked at him in adoration. In Muriel there was a softer future. Children maybe. Perhaps a son he could teach to be a Monstrumologist. Perhaps a daughter he could name for his mother. 

The deep and terrible sadness her death had birthed in him rose from the places that it hid when he looked upon John Kearns. He would have been able to tell her. He would have been able to ask her what to do. She would have known. When he had fled home, his heart wrent and soul stricken, she would have known. _She_ would not have told him to get over whatever English harlot was distracting him. She would have known that he was sundered. How often would he have to feel the bitter lurch of grief? 

He would not do this. He would not stand in a crowded bar before John Chanler and John Kearns and begin to cry. He clenched his teeth and drove his rush of despair away. He sat, stiff as ice, upon the bench. 

“You alright, Pell?” Chanler asked, “You want a drink?” 

“Fine,” Pellinore said, “Thank you.” 

Chanler motioned to a girl at the bar and Pellinore was brought the same that Chanler had, an iced whiskey. He fingered the glass, he didn’t like whiskey, but he was enjoying the cold against his fingers. 

Chanler beamed at him, he was clearly not on his first drink, “I ran into your - friend, Jack, why’d you never mention him? He’s a hell of a good time.” 

John Kearns grinned at him, “It’s good to see you again, Pellinore.” Then the smirk fell from his face, “Are you quite alright? You look ill.” 

“I am fine,” Pellinore snapped, cloaking the melancholy in his voice with roughness, “When did you start going by Jack?” 

“I find it suits me,” he said and he sipped his wine.

“What were the two of you conferring about?” Pellinore asked sharply. 

Chanler laughed and threw his arm over John’s shoulders, pulling a little roughly against him, “You make it sound like we’re whispering secrets to each other, Pell. He was telling me about hunting this wolf in Scotland, big as a damn bull, ate four kids-”

Pellinore frowned and his eyes flickered to John who was all but nuzzled under Chanler’s arm, “That sounds like-”

“-Like a Cu Sith, I know, the one Peak was looking for,” Chanler said, “Boy hunted a damn Cu Sith without even realizing.” He ruffled John’s hair and gave him a jovial wink, “Hell of a goddamn hunter.” 

“I am a hell of a goddamn hunter,” John said smugly, “Nice of you to notice.” 

Chanler laughed heartily, “You’ve got good taste, Pell. If you don’t watch out, I’ll steal him from you.” 

Pellinore ought to have been interested but he was not. He ought to care that John Kearns and John Chanler were suddenly thick as thieves but it seemed so superfluous. Almost as though it were happening not to him, but to someone else. 

“Pellinore?” John asked, “Are you certain you are alright?” 

He stood up suddenly, although he had only just gotten there and announced, “I have work to do. I am leaving.” 

“Work?” Chanler asked, “Come on, you just got here.” 

But while he might have had fun if it had been only Chanler with whom he could talk with ease, who had only just finished the novel Pellinore had recommended him, he had no interest in spending the evening with John. Or he had too much interest in it. He'd wanted it to just be Chanler, with whom Pellinore had actually begun to anticipate spending an evening talking about nothing of import while he took small breaks to flirt with girls and leave Pellinore alone and contemplative. But he could not stand an evening with Kearns. It cost him too much to carefully care over his words that they not be wrongly construed. And it cost him far too much to look upon his face and remember what it had looked like cast in ecstasy only a week before when Pellinore had betrayed Muriel. 

Anger at John for being there and anger at Chanler for inviting him flared to the tips of his fingers. 

“At least finish your drink,” Kearns said, smiling that smile at him. The one that made him want to kiss him and spend the remainder of his days with him. 

Had he not been careful, _Take me to Paris, John._ Would have burst out of him upon the sight of that smile. His rage increased tenfold, uncontrollably vitriolic. He lashed out, throwing his whiskey into John’s face and slamming the glass back on the table. 

John looked startled and Chanler stood up and exclaimed, “The hell, Pellinore!” 

But Pellinore was not standing there to listen, he had already turned to flee from the pub. He felt overwhelmed. He wanted to be alone. He jostled himself outside and into the cold. He liked how it bit at his skin. He didn’t go home. He didn’t want to be somewhere Chanler could find him. There was another spot he liked. 

He walked through the chilly wind for many minutes, no longer curled against it but enjoying how it whipped at his skin. The childish urge to cry was still high in his throat. How dare Kearns be here in his newly forged life? How dare he try to get back what he himself had destroyed? How dare he make channels of guilt open in Pellinore’s heart that he had moved on. He had not betrayed John. 

He walked out onto the bridge that overlooked the Hudson. The wind was even colder here. He pressed his bare hands against the metal of the railing and looked down at the dark water that rushed under him. It felt somehow both a comfort and a threat. He could slip over the side into those waters and nothing would hurt again. Perhaps his mother’s faith was right and she was waiting for him. He closed his eyes and imagined himself ensconced in the frozen waters. 

“Pellinore?” 

His eyes flew open and he twisted around. Muriel, so beautiful she half looked an apparition, was walking toward him. Her skirts were fluttering in the wind, her cloak pulled tight around her. Those delicate fingers were white with chill. 

“Muriel,” he said softly, “This is a surprise.” But it was not an unpleasant one. She did not elicit the uncontrollable demanding love that John did. She elicited a softer devotion, an urge to please and provide.

She smiled at him, though it looked unsure. When she was close enough he lifted a hand to tuck a stray lock of her hair back behind her ear. 

“Pellinore, you don’t look well.” 

“I-” he nearly lied but he could not bring himself to it, “I am not.” He looked back at the water and she followed his gaze. 

She didn’t demand he explain himself. She covered his hand with hers. 

“I feel tumultuous,” he said finally, “It is too much.” 

“Pellinore.” 

He looked down at her and he tried to convey the baying of his heart with only his eyes, for he did not know how to put it to words. 

Even though they were in the middle of the street in the semi-light of evening, she embraced him. Helpless, he pressed his face into her sweet smelling hair and wrapped his arms around her.

“Pellinore,” she murmured, “You feel everything so strongly. Of course sometimes it is too much.” 

She was a scaffolding about his heart. 

“Come now, Pellinore,” She said standing back from him, “You’re half frozen, get a cup of tea with me.” 

“Surely you were going somewhere,” he said, “I don’t want to steal you from your evening.” 

She reached up and touched his face, he leaned against her cool fingers, “Don’t be silly, Pellinore. You can only improve my evening.” 

All of a sudden it felt impossible that he might consider creating a life without Muriel. She was sweet and steadfast. She would not disappear in the dark of night. She would provide softness to the hard edges of his work. He drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them, “Muriel, you are indispensable to me.” 

She took his arm and they walked together off of the bridge. Early snow was beginning to come down, swirling around them as they walked. 

“Let’s go through the park, Pellinore, I think there is still enough light.” 

She smiled at him and he indulged her, “If you aren’t too cold.” 

“I’m warm enough, but I love the park in the snow.” 

They took their detour, arm in arm and when they crossed beneath the wrought iron arch Pellinore would have to admit that she was not wrong to love the park during snow. The light October snowfall clinging to the trees that still held smatterings of leaves and dissolving on the path appeared glittering and ethereal. 

It was quite sudden, but his desire was desperate. That he would marry Muriel Banks and she would be Muriel Warthrop. She would hold his arm for the rest of his life. They could walk through this park with their children. He had the image of a boy with dark hair and an angular face racing before them, kicking the piles of leaves. Of Muriel pushing a little buggy with a squirming little girl. 

He would have his work and his studies and he would be first among Monstrumologists and when he came home he would come home to warmth that would be entirely unlike the chilliness of Harrington Lane. 

“Muriel,” he said, stopping to look over the glimmering park, “I love you.” 

She took his hand and she laced her fingers through his. She held his hand for a long time in silence. When she spoke it was not to return his declaration of affection. Her voice was tight and cold, “Who is she Pellinore?” 

He jerked around, pulling his hand out of hers, “What? What did you say to me?” 

She was not in hysterics, she looked at him calmly and boldly. Her eyes like pieces of flint. “You are not as mysterious as you think you are, Pellinore.”

Under that steady and intelligent gaze he felt stripped and invisible, as though she could see the ghosts of John’s kisses upon his neck. 

“There is n-”

“Do not lie to me, Pellinore Warthrop,” she said evenly. 

“You are indispensable to me, Muriel,” He said desperately.

She seized his hand and furrowed her brow, “I will not be set aside, Pellinore. I will not be the woman left at home while you adventure across the world after your cryptids leaving bastards in your wake!” 

He tore his hand from her, greatly offended, “Does that sound as though it is something I am likely of doing, Miss Banks?” 

“Pellinore,” She said, sounding admonishing, “You plan on asking me to marry you.” 

He spluttered at her forwardness, “I- I have not.” 

“You do.” 

He stiffened his shoulders, “I do.” 

“Then you must listen to me!” 

“I do not believe that is a prerequisite to marriage.” 

For a moment he thought she would hit him across the face, but she did not. She straightened her back and put her hands inside her muff, “My words, Pellinore, are just as important as yours.” 

“That is preposterous. You are far less educated, younger than me by nearly four years, you know nothing of-”

She did not say a word, only turned and began to walk away. 

He stalked after her, “Muriel!” He took her by the shoulder and turned her around. 

She glowered at him coldly, “I apologize, do you dislike it when you are ignored? Does it wound you when someone you care for thinks you of little importance and unworthy of their time or honesty?” 

“You were the one accusing me of running off on you!” 

“Have you not?” 

Pellinore hesitated, “We have made no formal-” 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“Yes.” 

Her eyes closed for a long time and then reopened, “In the Philippines? A native girl?” Her voice rose an octave, “Or a beautiful young Spaniard grateful you saved her from some monster?” 

“No, Muriel, no. Someone- The one I loved in Cambridge.” 

The anger left her shoulders, her eyes melted, “Oh, Pellinore. The muse you told me about? Your Erato?” 

He nodded, the tumult that had assaulted his heart was renewing in horrible tremors. 

“She is here in New York?” 

He nodded, “I love you, Muriel, but I could not-” 

She lifted his hand and pressed her lips against the insides of his fingers, “Are you alright?” 

He fought to keep his chin from trembling, “No.” 

“Are you running off to Paris with her then?” Muriel asked in a whisper.

“No. No. I am staying here, with you.” 

She closed her eyes again, “I will not feel grateful for that. You need to understand something, Pellinore.” 

He frowned, a little annoyed, “I understand a great deal.” 

“Be quiet, you don’t. Listen to me.” 

“You insult my intelligence and then you demand-”

She cut him off, “You will listen or I will leave!” 

He shut his mouth. 

“If I marry you, Pellinore, I marry you far more than you marry me.” 

He scoffed, “Are all women so impossible to understand or is it merely you?” 

For once she looked utterly furious, her slender shoulders shook and red splotches were appearing on her cheeks, “Tell me then,” she hissed, high pitched and barely contained, “Do you forego your family name? Do you risk your life bearing children? Do you give up seeking occupation?” 

“Is there an occupation you prefer over me?” 

“Would you give up Monstrumology for me?” 

He drew back, “You cannot ask me that. You have no right to make that demand.” 

“Do I not?” 

“No! I am called to it, Muriel, and you wish to take that from me? What drives my ambition and-”

“No, Pellinore, I only wish for you to understand what you plan to ask of me.” 

“What I have not yet asked of you.” 

“And would you still ask if I told you I were some blue stockinged girl up to my eyes in books who wished to lock myself in the parlor and practice chemistry?” 

Pellinore perked up, “Do you?” he asked with great interest. 

She deflated, “Well...no…” 

“Why would you ask if it was not pertinent?” Pellinore, annoyed and confused. 

“I was interested in the theory,” she retorted haughtily. 

He frowned, “Theoretically, you would not be able to able to hold paid employment if you were married to me. It would poorly reflect upon the Warthrop name and we would not need the money. However...if you wished to privately study...as long as you did not neglect your other duties...I should not be so against it.” 

She laughed and it was a beautiful sound, but before Pellinore had had his fill of it she sobered again, “Tell me you will not seek her out again. Tell me there will be no one but me. Swear it.” 

Pellinore took her hands, suddenly earnest, “Yes, Muriel. I swear it. There will be no one but you.” 

She was soft again and sweet, her eyes gentle on his, “I love you, Pellinore.” 

“And I you, Muriel.”


End file.
